Promise
by NitroStation
Summary: 'A fallen queen stripped of her crown...' Airachnid never was the 'motherly' type. But stuck with a sparkling, alone and starving, she accepts help from the wandering Optimus Prime. Little does she know just how close they are...or once where. Prime-verse with TF Animated elements, OptimusxAirachnid/Elita One, Rating may go up later
1. Chapter 1

_A fateful collab of ideas between myself and Emmy-16. Oh boy._

_Not really much to say in here without giving too much away, just... hope I don't make you waste too much reading time, I guess._

_Though there may be an OC- and I use the term loosely- in the form of Airachnid's child, I promise (_hehe) _that 1) I won't let focus on them take away from the main story about Optimus and Airachnid/Elita One (which I guess is what most of you came here to see) _

_and 2) they WON'T be a Mary Sue. Whatever you regard that term to mean, be it an overpowered or otherwise pretentious character or one that just isn't developed well. And if it ever seems like I'm straying into Sue territory, feel free to tell me so I don't end up making everyone cringe.__  
_

___As for some warnings, heavily implied forced Megatron/Airachnid, past Elita One/Optimus, future Optimus/Airachnid (of which ship we have named Red Surrender) and one extra secret pairing involving Elita. Also I'll be... 'borrowing' elements from Animated Blackarachnia's backstory (and by borrowing I mean shamefully stealing almost all of it), as well as some things (mostly character personalities) from the IDW comics. On top of Optimus and Airachnid's relationship, I'll also being focusing on Orion Pax's life on Cybertron and his interactions with the femme would become Airachnid, as well as the subject of 'techno-organics'. For some reason they've always fascinated me, but canon-wise I've been disappointed with what little information we've been given on what exactly they're supposed to_ be, _as well as how diverse and broad a term it has become. I have quite a few ideas considering techno-organics and their place in Cybertronian society, both pre- and during war, and I'll hope to have a few of them included in this little venture. _

___ But hey, it might be good, it might be terrible. Only one way to find out..._

**xx**

_The white of trust_

_The blue of love_

_The red of surrender_

**xx**

For someone like Optimus, solitude was a rare mercy in the regular cycle of war and battle. He was the one that everyone looked to for direction, the one who had an answer and plan for everything. The reality couldn't be further from his soldiers expectations, but it didn't hurt to let them hold hope. He prided himself most on being an approachable leader, but maintaining such illusions gave little time for recluse.

The rain was heavy, splattering thickly and streaming down his armour. The rest of the Autobots were confined to base during such weather, and Optimus welcomed the moisture even as it threatened to rust his hinges. This forest was a favourite place of meditation for him, the cover of trees shielding him from wandering Decepticons and amplifying the soothing sounds of earthly nature. Ratchet was entrusted with overseeing the base and team, as well as deflecting any suspicions about his unaccounted absence. Even so, worry constantly gnawed at his spark during his excursions, holding back any true sense of peace, but at least it kept him alert.

He may never have seen the stain of energon on the fern leaf otherwise.

It was fresh, still glowing and only now succumbing to the relentless hammering of rain. Drip drip onto the forest floor, washing away into nothing. There were no reported incidents of incoming space pods, ships or other indications of new Cybertronian arrivals recently. A rogue Decepticon. Whether the enrgon was from itself or any unfortunate tag-along victims, there was no doubt that it would be hostile.

Optimus engaged his guns and ducked behind a tree, scanning the immediate area for life signals. None in range. He inched forwards, aiming his barrels left and right as he stalked through the soaked undergrowth. Even if the 'Con had somehow cloaked their signal, where there was one drop of energon there was always more...

The gloom of the evening made the glowing trail stick out like a sore servo. There was evidence of someone desperately trying to rub or scratch the stains out of the rocks and plants, but obviously they were in a hurry. To get out of the rain? Decepticon reasoning was never that simple. The spread of the energon drops increased the further Optimus followed them, eventually turning to thick streaks down the side of a mountain, which held an unknown cave. The opening of which was framed in luminescent blue.

Getting down the rocky face of the mountain was hard enough for Optimus, in full health and state of mind. It was mostly due to his large frame though, so the Decepticon must have been nimble to be able to traverse the stones without falling and snapping something off. He was certain now that it was the 'Con who was injured, else he would have been ambushed by now. Even so, they were known to act desperately whether able to fend off danger or not, either fighting to the bitter end or, more commonly, fleeing from the battle. The barrels of his guns burned through the rapidly growing darkness as he approached the mouth of the cave, pausing at the energon stains to scan the black beyond.

"Back away, Prime."  
Optimus swung his guns towards the direction of the voice; hissing and embedded with a venom that he'd never encountered before. Deeper into the cave, two dull pink lights barely glowed in the gloom. Their beholder had shied far back into the shadow of the cave, away from the spreading moonlight. Airachnid was alone, no detectable Vehicon escort or hidden officers nearby, and from the fizzling of her energy field, severely injured. Despite the previous warning, Optimus still advanced.

"I said BACK AWAY!" she shrieked, fangs bared fiercely and two back legs brought up, ready to slice and shear his plating when he came in range. Optimus halted, but did not retreat from her burning gaze. His optics could pick out highlighted details of her tensed frame, but the rest of her body was carefully hidden in the dark. She was taking the defensive.

Very strange. But, it seemed, conventions were changing in the rebirth of war.

"Has the damp gone to your processor, Prime?! Get away from me before I claw out-" Her cry was ended with a hiss of pain, and the pink light was suddenly extinguished. What Optimus could see of her slumped to the granite floor, servos folded in and helm dipped. Too weak to move, and the heavy loss of energon will have disabled her ranged weapons. The hunter of the Decepticons, sadism and taint incarnate, lay as helpless as a sparkling before him. His gun hummed from the ready charge of plasma loaded into it, aimed steadily at Airachnid.

One twitch of the digit would light the cavern with what was left of her energon. One simple reflex would end the centuries of murder and universal genocide.

His next actions would mean the life or death of more than just one bot.

"Where are your Decepticon brethren?" he asked, lowering the weapon to look into Airachnid's onlining optics. She made a scoff noise followed by coughing, and thick droplets of fresh energon fell to the floor.

"What does it matter to you?" she growled in reply. "They're far away from here. They won't care about my demise. So just put me out of my misery, _Autobot._"  
"You know I cannot do that, Airachnid," Optimus said cryptically, causing the spider's dimming optics to widen in shock.

"And just why not?" He noticed how she crawled backwards towards the nearest wall of the cave despite her injuries, and the sharp edge of fear in her voice.

"Because," Optimus transformed his gun back to its servo form, and stood resolute against the background of thunder and rain. "I will not create an orphan."

Airachnid's faceplate cycled through a rainbow of emotions; surprise, outrage, confusion, some that even Optimus did not recognise. Finally she lowered her helm again against her knees in defeat. "What gave it away?" she whispered, vocaliser threatening to close up.

"I know a mother when I see one. A _new _one especially so." When he approached this time, Airachnid did not force him away. She stared off blankly at the sheet of hammering rain outside and flashes of lightening, turning her face away from the Prime. Her spider legs lay purposefully folded in a shield around her back, joints twitching subconsciously. In the centre of that mass of razor-tipped rods Optimus could sense a tiny spark frantically ticking away. She was protecting her offspring. To see her caring for _any _living creature, even one of her progeny, was a jolt to Optimus.

The being before him was not Airachnid. She was a fading shadow of the Airachnid that he had witnessed just mere months ago. And something happened in those months. Something that had smashed her into a broken mess, leaving her clinging to tiny vestiges of her former self even as her personality was unwillingly rewritten. And now one question hung in the air like a viral disease; what had scarred her so much that her unbreakable core had shattered like glass?

"Need I ask who the father is?" Airachnid flinched at the mention of the word 'father', her optics shuttering from the sudden flare of anguish. Optimus' suspicions were correct then.

"There was a reason why I split from the Decepticons in the first place," she said in barely a whisper. "Megatron always held a special interest in me. Thought I was exotic... a war prize..." Her tone was mocking, but underlined with regret. "I knew it was only a matter of time before he...acted." She swung her optics to meet his, pink and blue swirling together with the intensity of her accusing glare. "If it wasn't for the Autobots, I would never have had to go back there. Back to him..." Optimus was lost for words at the inner turmoil being played out in front of him. Airachnid was always shown to be capable, adaptable, at home in any enviroment. That is, any except from home. The irony was as heavy as the beat of the rain outside. It was almost terrifying seeing such a strong femme struggling to even speak.

"You kept all this to yourself?" Airachnid's glare now sharpened to steel.

"Who would have listened?" she growled, claws scoring the rock beneath her with deep gougues. "Do you know how it feels, Prime? To scream all night, begging for someone to listen or at least acknowledge you? And to have them all just...not listen... and leave you to suffer..." Her mouth twisted into a shaky frown, and her optics burned brighter even with her condition. Optimus remained silent, and her helm fell forwards again.

"Just go...leave me and my burden to die with some _dignity_." Silence prevailed, save for the constant ambience of nature, for the next few tense moments.

"Airachnid," he began. "If the Decepticons no longer welcome you, then you are a rogue. A neutral, in all respects. And I will not allow a neutral to die if there is any possibility that I can save them." Airachnid scoffed again at his foolish noble words, refusing to meet his stare again. "Please, Airachnid...let me help you. And your sparkling." More silence. More rain. Something like a sigh pushed past her vocaliser and the legs at her back coiled out, servos reaching behind her and slowly drawing a new shape away. It was wrapped in webbing as a makeshift cocoon. She had probably used the last of her energy to make the cover. She cradled it close to her chestplates, near her spark chamber. Helm dipped downwards, optics squeezed shut.

Optimus had seen the image far more times than he ever cared to remember. Mothers desperately shielding their sparklings from whatever lay ahead, be it an advancing armada or grenade or flying shrapnel. Rarely did both make it out of those situations alive. Now Airachnid was hiding her child from the future; as dark and cold as the earthly night outside. He had seen mothers defiant to the end in an effort to protect their last link to their dying planet. And mothers-to-be shot through the spark... the thought caused his own optics to flutter. Now was not the time to be remembering...her.

"You both need energon," he said, eliciting a condescending glare from the femme.

"And you just so happen to carry cubes around with you?" she asked mockingly, frowning while still running digits down the sparkling.  
"As a matter of fact, yes." From subspace he retracted two cyan cubes, their glow tearing through the darkness. His hand only barely moved out of the way of Airachnid's extended leg, the barb reaching to snatch the cubes. It pulled back and she frowned deeper still.

"If I give you this energon, I expect your first move will be to attack me once your weaponry powers online again. Therefore, you must let me manually disable your offensive systems before I give you your life."

For a second, Airachnid actually appeared to consider the offer. As if she even had a choice. Optimus edged closer, keeping his optics firmly on the irregular twitches of her spider legs. Those legs were always a cause of fascination, or at least curiosity. The Prime, like all other bots, did not know of how Airachnid evolved into a techno-organic, as they were known. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know.

"She hasn't made a sound," Airachnid said numbly, lightly running talons down the blanket of webbing as Optimus knelt next to her."Not when she was birthed_. _Not even when... when her brother was shot right in front of her."

Optimus had long ago realised that one never did just accept the everyday horrors of war- public or otherwise. And just when you thought that you'd seen the worst of what your kind had to offer... a new grisly event lay around the corner.

"I'm...I'm sorry," he said dumbly as he cautiously grazed her servo with a hand, to which she growled again.

"Your apology means nothing to me," she snarled, jerking her servo away from his touch. "In the end, he's still a charred stain on the Nemesis floor..." If Optimus didn't know Airachnid better, he would have sworn that her optics were leaking coolant. Her servo fell back into place and he took it again, this time met with no resistance. A simple clip of the weaponry lines that ran through the servos to the hands and her lasers and webbing would be useless. As for her acid and razor legs... he'd cross that bridge when he came to it.

"And you know what the worst part is?" A sick bark of a laugh ripped through her cracked vocaliser as her helm inclined upwards again. Her faceplates _were _tracked with coolant streams after all. "Deep down inside I honestly _don't give a frag._"

"What do you mean, Airachnid?" Optimus asked, confused from her contradictory words. She didn't care, yet she was guarding her remaining offspring as fiercely as any mother would... What else had fate done to her?

"Do you know anything of the giant spiders of Archa Seven?"

Archa Seven. It was a name that he hoped and prayed never to hear again. He could practically feel his energon lines freezing over. His digits had pinched over a line of wires inside her servo plating and it took all his strength to bring himself to twist them into breaking.

"I have...heard of the planet," Optimus answered as Airachnid hissed in pain, bringing her cocooned sparkling even closer to her chest. "Its inhabitants... I know not of." With Airachnid relatively disarmed, Optimus held the first energon cube near her, which she swiftly grabbed and brought to her lips, gulping the precious liquid down. It was empty in less than than a klick. She sighed as her systems began to recover, energon tanks refilling and auto-repairs going to work. Optimus held out the other cube, which she took more hesitantly. With a glance at Optimus, she turned her back on him, obviously uncomfortable with him seeing her sparkling. He could see that Airachnid's choice of using only two legs to threaten him with wasn't a choice at all; they were the only ones left connected.

"Marvellous creatures, those spiders," she continued as she fed her sparkling, leaking the energon down its throat through a tiny slit in the webbing. "A single hive mind, ruled by a queen. And _ferociously protective _of their young..." The last sentence ended in a regretful growl, and she threw the empty energon cube away in anger.

"Are you saying that you are related to the Archa spiders somehow?" Optimus asked, answered with another laugh- stronger this time, but no less mocking.

"You tell me, Prime. Am I Decepticon, rogue, organic? Am I even Cybetronian?" She turned around again, a hand pillowing the head of her cradled sparkling. "Whatever my relation to them, we both share that damned trait," she said bitterly even as she held the object of her hate so tenderly. "My instincts have never betrayed me before..." she revealed idly, helm down again. _'Even the instinct to trust this filthy _Autobot_?' _her processor echoed as the statement left her lips. Of course she didn't trust him. Nevermind that he was an Autobot, being a Prime would have sanctioned her impulse to melt his head off its neck cables. But she _was _feeling...lighter of of a sudden. A weight heaved off of her shoulders and off to Primus-knows where. All from just... saying that scrap to someone? Scrap that she had kept locked in her spark for too long...

"What will you do now? With the Decepticons willing to kill you and a sparkling to care for..." Optimus asked out of a geniune worry that had generated over the past few minutes. Airachnid shrugged her shoulders indifferently, though with her back to him again she wiped the new tears of coolant away.

"I'm a scavenger. I'll adapt. As I always do."

"There's a near zero chance of you finding energon deposits on this planet without some form of det-"

"I can deal with it," she cut in defiantly, remaining two legs jerking in annoyance. "I've survived one war, I can make it through another."

"_You've _survived a war, but no sparkling ever has. Not without help." Airachnid stared at him in disbelief as she absorbed the information.

"The day I believe the _Autobots _would aid me is the day I kiss the Allspark," she spat in extreme sceptisism, depositing her wrapped sparkling back into the safety of her back legs connector joint.

"The Autobots as a whole will not help you," Optimus agreed, his blue gaze still steady. "But I will." Airachnid just shook her head with a sigh.  
"You are an idiot, Prime," she groaned, with the slightest suggestion of what might have been sincerity. "I have nothing to give you that you or your Autobots would want. Why help me only to hinder yourself?"

"Because, Airachnid," Optimus began with great difficulty, his voice edged with hurt that had long lost its edge. "I lost someone on Archa Seven. Someone...who then, was my world. And when she was gone, that was when the war began. That was when I vowed to take Megatron's life as his war did Elita One's."

Elita One.

Two words that hit Airachnid's processor like twin sleeper bullets.

She felt the impact; a sudden pressure in the centre of her helm. Painful, but nothing that she hadn't suffered before. It would subside, and it was dismissed.

It would arise again in time though.

"My reasoning as to why I wish to aid you is irrelevant," Optimus said in a last-ditch effort to earn a measure of her trust. "The question still remains; will you accept it?"

The common silence passed between them before Airachnid's answer. "Very well. Unless I find myself to be self-sustainable..." She had some difficulty getting her next words past the blockade of pride. "I accept whatever help you will give to me and my sparkling."

Optimus nodded towards her, and turned to face the pouring rain at the cave entrance. The moon was obscured and almost half-way though its transit. Ratchet would be worrying by now.

_"Ratchet, this is Optimus. I need a Ground Bridge."_

_"Understood," _came the medic's relieved voice at the other end of the comm line, and a green-blue vortex yawned in front of Prime.

"Wait!" Airachnid called from the cave just before he stepped into the spinning opening of the Ground Bridge. "Elita One..." She almost had to choke the name out. It felt strange on her glossa and felt like it burned her lips. "Was she... taken by the spiders?" A solemn nod answered her. "I'm sorry," she whispered, which Optimus' picked up even through the barrage of moisture against rocks. He _hmphed_ in acknowledgement.

"You...promise to return?"

Another silence broken only by the still hammer of rain. Then pierced by his final reply;

"I promise."


	2. Chapter 2

_HEY HEY my dearies! Yes, the next stop of our colossal Optimus/Airachnid ship journey is upon us. Tickets are non-refundable. _

**xx**

Optimus almost didn't notice the sudden flurry of activity sparked by his arrival, stepping slowly through the Ground Bridge warp vortex wrapped in his own thoughts. Only when something thudded against one of his peds did he jolt out of the haze, helm facing downwards at a sheepishly smiling Miko wielding a dented wrench.

"Sorry, Optimus," she apologised with a wave. "But Ratchet was about to blow a gasket, if ya' know what I mean," she whispered with a thumb pointed towards the anxious-looking medic behind her.

"You were gone for quite a while," Ratchet observed as Optimus' frame dripped water onto the base floor. His tone was neutral but there was tension wreathed in his cables.

"I suspected extra Decepticon activity in the area and had to scout around twice. Nothing to worry about," he replied passively. "Where are the others?"  
"Recharging while they wait for the rain to ease off," Ratchet explained, servos still crossed even as his faceplate remained blank.

"Then I believe I shall join them after drying off."Optimus walked towards the drying vents next to the base washracks, nodding to Jack and Raf sat on the couch with a video game. Miko watched him leave with something dancing in her eyes and a scowl on her face.

"Did he seem kinda off to you?" she asked, jumping up onto a nearby desk much to Ratchet's irritation. He did seem to consider her words though.

"What do you mean?," he inquired.

"Y'know, kinda..." Miko clicked her fingers as she searched for an appropriate word. "Distant?" Ratchet's optics blinked in thought for a long minute.

"Most likely he's just tired from the extra work," Ratchet finally replied, turning away so that the young human couldn't see his stony mask break into a frown. "Nothing to worry about..." he repeated Prime's own words under his breath as Miko swayed off back towards the boys. Something was troubling the Prime, that much was obvious at least to Ratchet. He'd known Optimus for too long now to ignore even the most subtle indicators of distress. The line of his mouth was forced, his posture too straight, walk stiff. He was trying too hard to act normally and in turn revealed his unease.

Ratchet might have appreciated the irony if he didn't recognise the smouldering fire in his blue optics. He had only seen such flames once before; long ago back on Cybertron in the midst of the war.

On that day, a promise was broken and a spark was lost. And if there was one thing Ratchet had noticed in his long life, it was that fate has an unfortunate habit of digging up old graves.

**xx**

Airachnid didn't know how long she lay there, huddled against the edge of the cave wall. Her optics were closed, the moon out of sight and everything in darkness. Outside the rain hammered down as ferocious as ever- occasionally a stray droplet would touch her armour and cause her to flinch. She would have slapped herself if she had the energy to spare. No wonder that Prime took pity on her... Primus, she was pathetic. No weapons, no home, and saddled with a parasite.

The sparkling was still silent, not even whimpering from the darkness or cold. Some part of Airachnid hoped that she had met the same fate as her brother- though not as brutally- but so far it hadn't felt as if her spark had been sliced in two, so that distant dream would remain as such. Another routine sigh huffed past her vocaliser, and her optics inched open as she reached behind her to grasp her child. With a tenderness that was completely foreign to her, she cradled her sparkling in aching servos. Part of the web cocoon had worn away around her face, though her own optics remained closed to the world. Her greatest worry was that they finally opened red. Crimson points that would haunt her for the rest of her life... a living reminder of her fall from grace. Hah. To brand that day with a word like 'grace'...

_'In a way, I should be grateful for you,' _Airachnid thought to herself, touching a digit to her child's still faceplate as she recalled what had transpired seemingly hours ago. _'Without you, Prime would have killed me... or at least hauled me back to his Autobots.' _Much of her thoughts had been occupied by the knight in red-and-blue armour, the taste of his given energon still lingering on her glossa. The first question was 'why?'. Why did he feel so inclined to help the one who had caused his soft comrades so many centuries of misery? Pity wasn't strong enough a reason. Optimus' own explanation was unsatisfactory. The inner workings of Autobot minds... one mystery of the universe that she'd never uncover. Best to just accept it as it was and not dwell too long on the details.

He would be back... when? How long would the fresh energon keep her going for? How long would she have to wait for his presence again? The questions made her processor pound in pain, and she resigned back to her faux catatonic state. The energon she ingested activated her automatic healing systems and she could feel tiny nanites going to work over her many scars and cuts. Even the slightly weeping wounds in place of her back legs were starting to heal over. They'd grow back, albeit at an excruciatingly slow rate. They always did... every damn time.

Airachnid had a love-hate relationship with her techno-organic form. The 'hate' side of which had doubled exponentially over the past few months. It wasn't that at first glance people would either instantly love or hate her based on what they saw. Nor was it the simple abominable fusion of living and metal, disgusting and wretched. She couldn't pinpoint the source of her hatred, nor the source of undeniable appreciation buried under the detestment. If she was just another run-of-the-Well femme, then perhaps Megatron might have ignored her.

She mentally slapped herself to keep her processor intact as it drifted back to that agonising night onboard the Nemesis. In his quarters, trapped beneath him as his talons scraped against her armour... to this day the scar on her waist still hadn't faded. A hand glided across the dent in the protoform, tracing the long line where his own armour dug in deep. The other servo clasped the sparkling closer to her, mother and daughter shielded from the roaring elements as they fought their own war inside themselves.  
She never cried when she was brought fresh into this fragged-up world.

Airachnid had cried enough for both of them.

**xx**

The warm currents of air enveloped Optimus and stilled the running droplets of rainwater on his armour. Beneath him the vent grill worked with a loud buzz as his protoform quickly dried. But even with the afterglow of warmth radiating from him, Optimus' maintained his frown. As he trekked through the base hallways and towards his own quarters, his mind was chaotic and swirling with thoughts that he could only barely grasp at before they slipped away into oblivion. But they all held a recurring theme- pink honeycombs and black armour.

He did not regret for one klick assisting Airachnid, but his mind was clouded with possibilities of a grim and complex future ahead of him. How would he continue assisting her and her sparkling, how he would explain to the Autobots, what he would do, what she would do, and what to do with her war-born daughter? He was not one to simply push such matters aside and address them later, he needed answers now. Every day just pushed his spark to its limits and beyond...

He could at least lay out several certainties. Airachnid wouldn't be going anywhere in her current state; her weapons were still offline and Primus knows how long it would take for her to heal. She deeply cared for her sparkling, if unwillingly. The Decepticons would be out looking for her, but her techno-organic chemistry meant that she wouldn't produce a standard Cybertronian signal. Unless they intensely scouted every square inch of the planet, she would be at least relatively safe.

And most importantly, the other Autobots could _not _know about this. Ratchet would certainly object to assisting a Decepticon, let alone one such as Airachnid, and the relationship with the rest of his team were strained enough as it is. Worst case scenario, if Arcee ever uncovered what Optimus was doing... there was no predictable outcome for how she would react. The hole left by the spider in deactivating Tailgate was torn back open when she set optics again on Airachnid. If Arcee saw her leader, role model and- dare he say it- father figure with his murderer... he'd be spilling salt right into that wound.

He needed to protect Arcee from herself. If he had any hopes of truly saving Airachnid and her daughter from the pit created by Megatron, then his next moves would have to be careful. On handing over those energon cubes, Optimus' life was ripped into two. Light on one side and darkness on the other. Sharp twin shards bound together by a secret-no, a _lie-_ meant to save everyone he loved. Saving everyone, just as he vowed to do a milennia ago...

_"You always were an ambitious one, Orion."_

Elita One...

It had been so long since he last thought of her; rose pink armour gleaming, shining silver, the brightest of cerulean blue optics that Optimus had ever had the joy of seeing... His legs suddenly crumpled beneath him, and he had to grab onto the wall to stop himself collapsing into a scrap heap. His processor was suddenly overloaded with an influx of accursed memories, smiles and laughs and tears blending together into a masterpiece so haunting that coolant threatened to spill from his optics. Sliding along the wall, Optimus dragged himself into his quarters and almost slammed the door shut, slumping onto his colossal berth with an equally large sigh. His optics squeezed shut and denta clamped down on his lips. He was no stranger to relapses, but like the trauma of war it was something that never settled into a desensitizing routine. When his optics fluttered open a long while later, his sight was fragmented and flickering; something from his processor overwhelming his optical sensors.

The glitches spread out even further across his vision and another sigh heaved past his closed vocaliser. It was going to be a long night...

**xx**

_"You haven't touched your energon."_

_The lilt of a sweet and familiar voice reaching his audios broke Orion Pax's wall of concentration. Through the rubble blue orbs regarded him curiously, fringed with black and hung above a light pink smile. Elita One sat opposite him, holding a glass of energon near her mouth, while his own was cupped in his hands, forgotten in his other crowded thoughts._

_"Thinking again?" she asked Orion as he swirled the glowing blue liquid around idly. He took a long sip before answering._

_"Just about... the council. And what Sentinel said."_

_"Oh, the whole 'these young ones and their upstart ideas' spiel?" Elita smirked good-humouredly at the memory of Sentinel Prime's most recent tirade._

_"I recall it as being a bit fiercer than that," Orion said, returning her smirk._

_"Looked like his energon lines were about to burst."  
"And his optics were practically poppng out of their sockets!" Their shared laughter filled the empty balcony of the cafe and wafted into the evening air._

_"Does Alpha Trion know about the new bad influence?" Elita asked through tiny residual bursts of laughter, referring to Orion's newest idol, the Kaon gladiator Megatronus. She hadn't met him herself, but she had definitely experienced the influence his speeches had._

_"Not yet. But I've been wanting to discuss it with him. He's... not as close-minded as Sentinel. I actually think he'll be interested in Megatronus' ideas."_

_"You think it'll shift the dust off his processor?" Her chuckle only increased at the disapproving look that Orion threw towards Elita's jibe at his mentor. Eventually he degraded into more laughs with her._

_"I think he's been waiting for someone like Megatronus. Someone to stand up and say 'hey, maybe life actually kinda sucks'."  
"Have you been spending time with Jazz again?"_

_"Well, you know him. He's infectious." Even Orion's light tone couldn't distract Elita from the fall of his icy, contemplative mask that he'd recently generated. Such a thing was arising more often with each passng day._

_"What are you worrying about, Orion? We're here, we're alive, we've got good energon-"_

_"That's just us, though," he interrupted, a plaintive look in his optics. "What about the ones all around us?"  
"What _about_ them?"_

_"I mean... look at that gem seller down there." Orion motioned to the old mech stationed behind the stall at the side of the street below them. "He works all day, barely making enough credits to keep himself powered, and for what? So he can wake up to do the exact same thing for the rest of his life? You try and tell me that that's a worthwhile existence."_

_"I'm sensing a metaphor," Elita remarked with a habitual smile._

_"Look, I'm sorry for getting all philisophical on you again-"  
"I don't mind. It's cute." Her smile grew at the sudden rush of heat to Orion's faceplate._

_"I'm just saying... we shouldn't have to conform to whatever life was chosen for us. We should have a choice. We _deserve _a choice. And it's about time the council knew that."  
"And you're going to be the one to bring about this mass change in all of Cybertronian culture?" Elita sipped from her glass. " You always were an ambitious one, Orion."_

_"I won't be alone," he persisted._

_"Ah yes, how could I forget Megatronus?" She didn't mean to be so spurning of her friend's ideals, but she couldn't resist easy opportunities at twisting his gears. "There's been rumours about, that he'll be addressing the council directly."  
"Yes. He asked me to join him." The simple statement stunned Elita, her servo frozen as she raised her glass to her lips._

_"When?" she asked, shifting into a serious tone for once._

_"This morning," Orion replied. "It's scheduled a week from now."_

_"Oh..." Elita's processor was stalling at the aruptness of the news, trying to accept what she was hearing. Orion and Megatronus... marching right up to the High Council, demanding that they change a core element of all Cybertronian life? She was conflicted at what she should be feeling; hope for her dear friend and his goal for a better Cybertron, for a new future. And fear... for what the council might do if they rejected their appeal. There had been too many stories of outspoken high caste members suddenly 'disappearing' floating about... Of course a explanation was fabricated and if necessary, deaths obviously faked to those who looked close enough. Elita never before concerned herself with the blatant corruptness of her home though. If it didn't affect her physically, then she wouldn't let it do so mentally. But ever since she reunited with her old Academy friend, she'd become increasingly more involved with the little fluctuations, details and powers that controlled the whole of Cybertron. To think the fate and function of a planet in the hands of such careless individuals... it scared her more than anything she'd ever encountered. Even the simple idea made her shiver._

_Within she was torn. But outside she still smiled._

_When Elita looked up from her empty energon glass, Orion had a hand to the side of his helm and a long suffering expression on his faceplate. He made sounds of confirmation into his comm link and sighed when the transmission ended._

_"Magnus' threatening to come down here and drag me back to work." He rolled his optics and adopted a small smile. "Will you be at your's tomorrow?"  
"Usual shift times," she replied, the glow of her optics wavering slightly. As they stood and hugged farewell, she bade him 'good luck' in his audios. He grinned his thanks and waved before he went out of sight down a far street to the left. The same street that housed the gem merchant stall he pointed out._

_Elita tried not to notice the security drones holding their guns to the old mech's head._


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapters, glorious chapters. Note about this one, while I'm still working on where this would fit into the official Prime canon timeline, I'm thinking on setting this chapter just before Loose Cannons._

**xx**

To say Optimus awoke would have been too kind a word. Rather, he was torn away from the fabric of his relapse, the frayed threads that still lingered around him stinging painfully. He cycled air heavily, optics wide and systems on the verge of meltdown. His berth surface and his shivering frame was damp with coolant shed in his stasis. So much for drying himself a groan he heaved himself upright and sat on the edge of his berth, servos on his knees and helm low. Even with the centuries that passed Elita One remained as crisp and beautiful in his memory as when he last saw her... when anyone last saw her.

His digits scored into the metal of his knees, distracting him from the murky depths of his mind. He wasn't ready to remember that yet... at this rate he never would be. Perhaps that was for the best.

As Optimus emerged from the stifling heat of his quarters and walked into the welcoming neutral air of the base, he prepared himself for a swarm of morning greetings and, more plentiful, mundane problems from his teammates needing addressed 'immediately'. The sight of the foyer was a comforting familiarity though, with the children sat at the TV and their guardians nearby. Ratchet was nowhere in sight- most likely getting supplies from deeper within the base or trying to escape the usual noise in the base centre that the humans generated. If he didn't spurn the species themselves, then he held more than enough contempt for their traits. Arcee, Bumblebee and Bulkhead all raised their helms towards Optimus at the sound of his arrival, all mostly content- except for the femme.

"We missed you last night," she commented. Not a question, nor an accusation. Yet it still gave Optimus a sense of unease. "Ratchet said you were out on patrol." He nodded, trying to remain calm under the intense sweep of her stare. If he wasn't careful, she could easily pierce the shield that hid his discomfort.

"There was suspicious activity in the area," he expanded, marching himself past her even as her optics burned into his back. "I had to scout more thoroughly to ensure there were no threats." Arcee made a sound in reply, and seemed to let the matter drop. For now.

"Hey Optimus, where was the area that you were searching?" Rafael asked as Optimus passed the couch that the children were seated on, laptop opened and on his knees.

"I believe you know it as the northern Jasper woods," Optimus replied, wondering what the purpose of such a question was as the human child typed something in and brought up a webpage.

"I was just wondering because- where is it- here!" With a click Raf projected his laptop display onto the larger base computer. If Ratchet was present then he'd be having a processor meltdown at the thought of having potentially lost 'hours of vital medical work'.

"I was browsing the conspiracy websites for any new 'Bot sightings, and I saw this posted on a local blog," Raf explained as a short blog post was displayed on the screen, accompanied with a dark, blurred picture of the forest. There was a sliver of glowing blue between the fuzzy fern shadows. "It says that there was something moving in the woods last night, and that it left behind a glowing blue liquid." Bumblebee's, Bulkhead's and Arcee's optics widened at the news.

"That looks like energon to me," the Wrecker said grimly, and Bumblebee beeped something worriedly. "Think it could be that 'suspicious activity' you were talking about, Optimus?" Three pairs of wide blue optics swivelled towards the Prime, waiting for a confirmation.

Optimus took time to study the display before having to answer. The image was barely recognisable as a forest, only the fern leaves and ragged shadows of undergrowth giving it away. But what at first looked like a stunted tree with two 'branches' sprouting from the top brought back the images of mere hours ago. She was injured, clumsy, her first priority getting out of the rain. Stealth came later. Something- or someone- was bound to hear the crashing of desperately fallen foliage. All it took was one witness to bring even the greatest lie down to its knees.

But there were times when it could push itself back up.

"It could very well be, Bulkhead. Though I did not come across such on my patrol..." Optimus answered carefully, feigning his ignorance with a shameful expertise.

"Last night's rain will have washed it away by now," Arcee pointed out.

"Nevertheless, I shall investigate further," Optimus said with veiled relief.

"Investigate what now?" a grumpy voice asked from behind; Ratchet returning with an armful of glass medical vials. Bulkhead pointed to the projected display, thankfully after Ratchet had unloaded his servos so that he didn't end up littering the floor with broken glass shards from his shock.

"Energon!" he cried out, advancing towards the image with an accusing digit pointed out. He was about to say something else, but a frantic glance at Optimus immediately stopped him. They had both noticed the familiarity in the shadowy background shape, and Ratchet was just words away from dooming Airachnid, and her child. Optimus' optics held a silent plea, one that he couldn't explain but that he prayed his old friend would understand and accept. Asthe other Autobots voiced their own opinions in ambience, Ratchet groaned and shuttered his own optics, coming to stand closer to Optimus.

"That form in the trees?" he whispered, keeping his mouth movements to a minimum.

"They think it's just branches," Optimus replied.

"And what is it, really?" Ratchet asked with a sudden, snappy distrust. Optimus was silent for a few klicks before he answered.

"That I cannot reveal." His optics lowered at Ratchet's deep sigh. "At this moment in time, at least."

"You're keeping secrets from the team-"  
"For a good cause, Ratchet," Optimus interrupted, desperation creeping into his tone. "All I ask for now is that you trust me on this, and I promise that all will be revealed." The old medic scoffed, but his hard blue glare softened.

'_Promises... what signifigance did _they _have anymore?'_ But in all the years that he knew Optimus, he'd never given him real reason to doubt his actions. Regardless of how much or little he knew of them, or the motives behind them. If he could will himself to break through his wall of cyncism just one last time...

"You guys done gossiping?" Miko called up to the elder mechs, drawing a scowl from Ratchet. He glanced again at Optimus, something reluctant flitting in his optics, and slowly nodded rejoined with the rest of the Autobots gathered around the display. Optimus let out a heavy cycle of air, wondering just how deep the pit he'd dug himself into was now.

**xx**

When Airachnid awoke from recharge, something echoed wildly throughout her cave. She didn't realise it was her own scream until the reverb had long since subsided. Cycling air rapidly she glanced around warily, noting the fingers of morning sunlight rays spreading into the cave opening and the heavy after-storm mist in the air. A hand subconsciously went to her sparkling tucked into her back, stroking the tattered webbing as she tried to stand up. Slight wobbling on the peds, but she didn't collapse when she walked forward. A noticeable improvement from yesterday.

A quick scan confirmed that her minor wounds had healed over night, and the other larger lacerations would only require a few days. Rust infection shouldn't be a problem as long as she stayed dry. But though she was healing on the outside, inside she was still in a limbo of turmoil. Her spark still ached from the agony of feeling her son's brief life extinguished, and her processor pounded incessantly. She had dreamed, but her memory refused to recall the images and whispering sounds. It hurt too much. Though she could see bright spots of glowing blue in the corners of her vision...

One servo cradled her sparkling and the other shielded her optics from the glare of the sun as she emerged at the very edge of the cave entrance. No Cybertronian life signals in range, with forest surrounding the area and fallen, rotting logs nearby marking the age of this wide ravine. The Decepticons would be hard pressed to find her- if they were even trying to. Megatron didn't know that one of his children still survived- Airachnid was careful to conceal the femme from his optics during her escape from the Nemesis- and he would be certain that Airachnid's wounds would have eventually finished her off for him. She didn't even know where the Ground Bridge spat her out- it wasn't as if she could see where the co-ordinates were set...

_Lasers scoured and scorched the walls inches away from her back as she pelted through the Nemesis corridors, unable to suppress her whimpers of pain and unbridled terror. She held a precious load close to her aching spark- ebbing waves of agony from her core that caused her to trip over her heels in her frenzied escape. The Vehicon troops were always just a few klicks behind her... matching her pace but thankfully not her speed. In any other cursed circumstance she would only be slipping up in their own spilled energon on the floor, but no matter how much she desperately tried to force any vestige of power into her servo blasters she was awarded only with an empty, futile click and another searing sparking of her wires. _

_Why was she running? What was it about the worthless slab of newborn protoform cradled to her chest that made her tear apart everything she had tried to keep glued together for the past endless vorns? The basic message playing on a loop in her processor- Keep her safe- was almost insulting to her, but she wasn't afforded any further time for hurried contemplation before a light fixture exploded right before her, energy within falling back on her coolant-beaded armour and making contact with stinging hisses. They were getting closer. If she tried to go any further down the corridor ahead they'd easily rail her bleeding back with plasma bolts. Her last two legs twitched again- they were doing it a lot since her other four were ripped off by Megatron's grip, one that shot out at her as soon as the crimson optics picked her out hiding in the gloom of the Nemesis' more deserted hallways. Or maybe what alerted him was the scream of pure agony that lanced through her, past her vocaliser and into the air saturated with the stench of molten metal and fusion discharge. One servo instantly clutched again over her spark as another pulse of pain passed through, and optics scanned all around for somewhere, _anywhere_, to give her a klick of sanctuary- or some sweet illusion of such. If she was going to die, she'd die with some semblance of peace._

_That, at least, was something she could control. Unlike the Nemesis doorways, one of which suddenly slid open as her servo braced itself against a wall to support her trembling frame. She fell into the room beyond and hit the ground on her mutilated back, wincing and dazed from the impact. With foggy optics she frantically assessed the blurry shape before her, a button of some kind for the door. Whatever it did, she didn't have time to find out before a free servo pressed it. The sound of bolts engaging on the door was a sound of sweet relief to her, the echoes of the locks sliding into place overlapping her heaving gasps of air through her warped vents. Somehow she managed to pull herself to her shaking peds, recognising the wide expanse of room as one of the data analysis centres from the lights set low against the glow of the massive computer screen that dominated the far wall. She only just noticed that the console below it was occupied when the silhouette stood there turned towards her. At the sight of sheer glass reflecting back coolant-teared honeycomb optics, her knees threatened to buckle under her from the weight of the despaired wail building within. _

_Soundwave's approach was devoid of emotion, not even the barest signal of anger or accusation in his fluid movements coming to meet her. Airachnid's breaths hitched with sobs that what little that was left of her pride couldn't even quell. She wanted to meet his featureless face with something at least close to defiance in the face of slender death, but the silent child still in her arms was all that magnetised her optics- all that mattered was that she survived. Even if her creator didn't. _

_"Please..." Trying to bite back such a pathetic plea only left stinging holes in her glossa, and her energon tasted stale as it pooled in her mouth."Spare me, Soundwave..." Her optics dared to shutter and point upwards to him past the sad film of tears. She didn't know what good it would do to beg, let alone with Megatron's pet himself. She also didn't know, and would _never _know, what little sub-routines were passing through his mind as he processed her infeasible request. For some, inexplicable, _terrifying _reason though, that request was accepted._

_She heard the whirl of the Ground Bridge portal next to her before her optics flicked towards it, a swirling gate to Primus-knows-where. For all she knew it would lead to Megatron's quarters, or some barren prison where she could be suitably left to rot. Knowing Soundwave on basis of only mythos and bare reputation, Airachnid could only guess those desolate possibilites. Wherever it stranded her though, at least she knew one thing. It would be better than the Nemesis. _

Soundwave's motives for such an act of..._empathy_ were something that she wasn't sure if she ever wanted to uncover, if the opportunity for such knowledge ever came along. She certainly didn't want to dwell on it, all that mattered was that Primus had decided to down a few high-grades and twist his little playground that he called the universe around- and fortune favoured her in the aftershocks of such supposed meddling. Soundwave's Ground Bridge was self-generated; good news in that there was no way for the Decepticons to lock onto the destination co-ordinates, bad news in that she was virtually stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Stranded... except for Prime.

And if he was nearby, the rest of his team was sure to be.

Arcee would probably shoot down her sparkling right in front of her out of revenge for Tailgate- how she could hold a grudge that long, Airachnid would never know. The others she knew little of, so she could hardly gauge their actions. But she'd bet both their sparks that not one of them would be nearly as understanding as Optimus.

Something clicked in her arm, and she looked down at her wriggling offspring. The webbing cocoon had worn away into stray strands that stuck to the sparkling's plating like a disease. With a talon Airachnid picked them off as the child stretched and chirped in her waking throes. Light gray protoform marked her skin, with optics squeezed closed. Armour wouldn't start forming until her next few weeks, and even then it would constantly reform and shed as she grew. With their faceplates close, Airachnid could see two faint streaks of black arching down her sparkling's optics, with a small violet mouth underneath.

'_How can something so young be so beautiful...?' _Was this how all mothers saw their children? Or were her techno-organic instincts masking over her vision? She wouldn't be surprised, they had done nothing but hinder her these past few months.

Karma really was a glitch.

Seating herself at the very edge of the cave, Airachnid allowed the rising sun rays to wash over her armour and heat her sluggish systems. She didn't want to risk leaving the area, else she get lost, or if Prime returned. And she was certain that he would. He was too damn holy to let her fend for herself. That would make taking advantage of him even harder.

She'd have to play her cards very carefully. Her main goal was to survive. Any revenge against Megatron came later. Much later. Optimus would be instrumental to achieving that goal, so she'd do well to keep him close. And if there arose any side ambitions along the way... well, she was an unfortunate opportunist. A not-so-nasty habit that Archa Seven gifted to her, along with everything else.

Something told Airachnid that she'd be revisiting that Primus forsaken planet more times than she'd ever care to in the coming days.

**xx**

"Optimus, are you sure-"

"I will be fine, Arcee. The rest of you are needed here to ensure the safety of the base, and the children," Optimus assured her, the spinning Ground Bridge portal behind him giving him a harsh glowing outline. Ratchet looked even more unhappy than usual at the bridge controls, but stayed silent as Arcee questioned Prime on what he was about to undertake. The rest of the Autobots knew only that he was going to scout the forest area again, in search of the 'Energon Culprit' that had the humans in an uproar. It took a hefty amount of persuasion to convince Agent Fowler that an aerial scout would not be necessary- the last thing Optimus needed was the notoriously twitchy human government becoming involved with what was already spinning out of his control. He knew though that convincing his teammates that he would be safe going alone would be significantly more difficult. With one last look at Bulkhead and Bumblebee assembled in the background, Optimus turned towards the vortex before Arcee could think of another worry to voice. When he winked out of sight, she sighed with servos crossed. Bumblebee chirped a question at her; "Anything wrong, 'Cee?"

"Nothing, Bee, just... I've got a bad feeling about this," she replied, optics shifting nervously. Ratchet glanced over at her, and sighed wearily. 'I hope you know what you're doing, Optimus...'

"PRIME!" a sudden very angry voice cut through the tense silence of the base, Agent Fowler's visage taking up the communications computer screen. "What in blazes are your people doing out here?!"

"You just missed him," Bulkhead said to him, optics heavy with annoyance. "What's the problem?"

"The problem is that we had an agreement; no collateral damage!" The Autobot's faceplates turned to confusion.

"I can't imagine Optimus going out to level a town in the space of two klicks," Ratchet deadpanned.

"Where is Prime anyway? Can he explain why there are two jumbo bots out ripping up the ground as we speak?!"

"Decepticons?" Ratchet asked, coming to join the rest of the team gathered before the screen.

"There has been plenty of infighting lately. Megatron can't seem to keep his ranks in line..." Arcee commented.

"Well I'm just arriving on the scene." The screen shifted with a burst of static to show a ship lodged in the dirt, spilling out smoke. "Have a look." Zooming in on a tiny point stepping out of the ship debris showed a bulky jet Decepticon wielding a hefty cannon in his servos, aiming it steadily in front of him. Bumblebee almost thought it was Skyquake at first glance, frantically clicking in disbelief. Bulkhead's outspoken speculation sated his thoughts though;

"I dunno... paint job aside, it can't be Skyquake. You and Optimus pounded him into the ground."

"You said there were two bots... so who's the dance partner?" Arcee asked as the camera panned to the side, showing another ship parked on the ground and zooming in on another familiar shape.

"By the Allspark..." Ratchet muttered at the white, blaster-ready mech shown on screen. "It is one of ours!" And not one to be happy about. Bulkhead was quite the opposite to Ratchet's annoyance at Wheeljack's return though, pounding his teammates on the back enthusiastically.

"Yeah, Jackie's back!" he laughed, grinning at the sight of his old friend. Ratchet rolled his optics, not wanting to think of what Optimus was going to have to deal with when he returned.


	4. Chapter 4

Optimus marched into the cool evening air, peds crunching in the twigs and leaf litter beneath. He was plunged into darkness as the Ground Bridge portal disappeared, but recognised the outline of the cave opening up ahead. Just as well the bridge co-ordinates were unchanged since his warp last night. He approached unarmed, not wanting to incite another hostile response from Airachnid, and switched on his chest headlights to illuminate the cave as he knelt down at a window-like gap in the stone. Her back was turned away from him, resting on a mound of rocks against the wall. Optimus recognised the purring sound of sleep that came from her. With a rumble of his engines, he waited patiently for her to wake. Airachnid's helm rose slowly, shaking slightly and turning towards him. Her optics narrowed against the sharp glare of his headlights, but he swore her lips bore a smile. A small one, but a smile nonetheless. She thought he couldn't see it.

"Apologies for waking you, Airachnid," Optimus began, dimming his lights as she shifted herself into a sitting position. "Are you well?"

"I'm...better..." Her reply was quiet, edged with caution. With his strange kindness the previous night she couldn't bring herself to drop her guard; even former Decepticons still suffered from the viral distrust of Primes. Optimus nodded despite the ice in her answer, still kneeling at the cave opening.

"May I enter?" he requested, drawing a look of confusion from Airachnid. He was...asking permission? She nodded before she could fully consider it, a seemingly automatic action. Slowly Optimus lowered himself into the dip of the cave, which levelled out into a spacious room. He approached her from the side, noting how she turned herself away from him the closer he came. Her servos were held against her, fiercely shielding their cargo from prying blue optics.

"Took you long enough," she muttered, regaining some shadow of her long lost impudence. She braced herself for a cutting reply, but all that came was a voice so sincere that it almost sickened her.

"I would have visited sooner, but I had to deflect suspicions," Optimus explained, a genuine apology in his tone. Airachnid couldn't face the endearing smile that he dared to show to her- _for _her_. _

"They'll find out," she said, rearranging herself to face away from Optimus again. An optic ridge raised at her words. "Autobots don't know how to lie. And they sure as the Pit can't accept a lie. Especially not one from _you, _Prime. How will you stop them from hunting me down when it happens?" It was a long moment before he answered.

"I know more of the art of deception than I'd care to ever admit, Airachnid." Now it was her turn to raise a ridge skeptically. So the Prime wasn't as pure-sparked as she always thought... that made him just a tad less insufferable. "And I made my choice to aid you and your child. That will not change whether or not my comrades accept my decision..." His optics wandered off as he thought of how Airachnid's prediction was already coming true; he had pledged to Ratchet an explanation and Arcee was already asking questions. His teammates knew him too well. At the very least, Ratchet would understand why. Arcee wouldn't even give him the chance to explain.

"Are you going to stand there _all _night staring at me?" Optimus didn't notice his optics centering on the half-hidden mass in Airachnid's servos. He averted them, but caught a glimpse of her softer expression. Somewhere in his spark, he felt a need to see the sparkling for himself. Curiosity wasn't enough to describe it.

"If I may ask about your sparkling-"  
"She's fine," she snapped back, faceplates sharp as steel again and scowl returning. "Just fine..." Her optics flitted down to the child in question, turning it in her arms as Optimus contemplated how she reacted to his request. He expected it as well as a human expected dark clouds to bring rain. But this dark cloud had a spark that he promised to protect.

Reaching into his subspace compartment, he drew out another two cubes of energon and stretched his servo out towards her. With a weighing look she snatched them as if they were going to disappear into thin air. Optimus watched as she stared forlornly at the cubes in her hand, helm dipped down. She didn't drink the energon.

"Your weaponry systems should have repaired themselves by now," he told her, letting his gaze fall gently on her. The encroaching light of the moon was spreading up her frame from the small opening of the cave, highlighting her ragged features. Her armour was scratched and dull, paint chipped and faceplate marred with contempt.

"Nothing stopping me from attacking you then, is there?" Optimus recognised Airachnid's probing questions, a subtle attempt to have a glimpse into his mind. Decepticons were adept at the manipulation of words, a craft that Megatron himself mastered in his gladiatorial days.  
"Only your own morals," he replied, not attempting to hide any information from her, but deciding to use her own art against her. "But in that case, there would also be nothing stopping me from retaliating." His optics went back to her sparkling, and her eyes widened in the sudden horror of realisation.

"You wouldn't," she whispered in disbelief.

"I do not leave orphans, Airachnid," he repeated with a careful edge, frown giving off a neutral warning. The morbid message was clear; drop the attitude. Their stand-off was tense and silent, sharp optics measuring every minute movement of the bot before them. Airachnid's stiff shoulders fell in defeat under Optimus' intense stare, her servos following suit. He hated himself for having to resort to such diabolical, underhand tactics, but if it would sand her rough edge down enough so that she opened up to him, then it was necessary.

"Your sparkling?" he asked again, expecting a proper answer this time.

"...Sleeping. Quiet. But...healthy." He noticed the venomous regret in her reply; her previous attitude to her child so far hadn't changed. Or if it had, she wasn't showing it.

"May I see her?" Under other circumstances it would have been insane to hand something over to the very bot that mere klicks ago had threatened to teminate it, but Optimus knew that Airachnid's reasoning processes would be cloudy over the lingering haze of relief that her submission would have brought on. She didn't look up as she outstretched her servos, sparkling held in her talons. Optimus shifted himself closer and gently retrieved the bundle of life from her, hands as still as the night around them. He held the sparkling in the cradle of his servos, optics scanning the tiny form. He didn't know what he was expecting- a miniature version of her father most likely. But looking at her, taking in every developing detail with whirring optics... if he didn't know it already, he would never have guessed that Megatron had anything to do with her. She was... delicate. A soft faceplate with sweeping rather than striking crowns, and thin primary armour over her grey protoform. Not a trace of Decepticon taint that he could visibly see. Her optics were still closed over, black lines that matched her mother's curving down. A tiny servo was curled over her violet lips, twitching irregularly. There was always an innocent beauty within every sparkling, but to see it coming from a damned Decepticon union was a jolt to Optimus' systems. Not an unpleasant one, rather it awoke something in his processor... something that he thought he recognised from millenias ago.

"She's beautiful," he said, content to simply watch her in his arms. Airachnid scoffed at his comment, letting her helm hit off the rock behind her as she slumped back. Typical Autobot sympathy. His next remark though caught her off guard. "Just like her mother." Her optics flashed open, trying to meet his own to see if he was serious. But something made them avoid him, dancing around the gloom of the cave yet refusing to go near the blue lights that regarded her with returning sincerity.

"Then why do I feel so _ugly_?" Optimus froze at the pure bitterness in her confession, optics angling up towards her. Something in his spark wrenched at the sight of her folded and broken, without the strength to even keep her helm up. He didn't see any ugliness in her, like he always saw within Decepticons. The ugly face of evil. She didn't have it... or he couldn't see it. Or a combination of the two. No, when his optics settled onto her, he saw only one painfully familiar thing.

_'Dammit Elita...'_

Both victims of Megatron's atrocity. Both fallen prey to Archa Seven. The only break in the monotony was that Airachnid survived. An extraordinary coincidence.

But Prime had learnt to never believe in coincidences.

He couldn't ask her about Archa Seven though...not yet. A sudden chirp from his arms pulled him from that particular ravine of thought, and his optics flicked down again. Two squinting, icy blue lights looked back. They took in the angles of metal and the pulse of the spark nearby.  
"Airachnid..." Optimus called to her, optics still locked with the sparkling's curious gaze. The femme lazily swung her head towards Optimus, and her limp neck instantly went taut as she realised that there were two more lights in the darkness. Numb with... some feeling she didn't recognise, she slowly drifted towards them and gratefully took in the light blue shade in the tiny lights before her.

_'Anything but red...' _She felt herself sigh with relief and something like wonder at the sight of the new, innocent eyes finally opened for the very first time. They didn't frantically dart all around though like curious mosquitos, as most sparklings did- eager to explore every inch of their home and world. If her whole world was but a dark and damp cave, then perhaps that was why she stared so intently at Optimus.

Perhaps...

**xx**

"Prime often go off on these walks?" Wheeljack asked as Ratchet welded blue sparks down a scar in his shoulder, who tutted every time he flinched away from the stinging flame.

"Depends," Arcee answered, servos crossed as she stood with the rest of Team Prime gathered around the new arrival. "He likes his border patrols."

"Less work for us though!" Bulkhead chuckled as Ratchet finished up with Wheeljack's repairs, much to his dwindling complaints ("Take it easy, Doc, I need that arm"). "Hey, speakin' a'work, how come you're back on earth, Jackie?"

"Along with that other bot?" Arcee added. Wheeljack let out a growl before he answered.

"That... would be Dreadwing," he all but spat in reply, optics narrowing dangerously. "Tracked his sorry aft across millions'a light years when he finally touched down back here." As he explained how Dreadwing killed Seaspray and attempted to terminate him as well, Ratchet couldn't stop his optics glancing towards the Ground Bridge controls and comm screens. A nervous twitch triggered from the unease that currently saturated his spark. Ratchet had no idea what Optimus was out doing, nor did he know if it really _was _as necessary as he insisted it was. And when Optimus _did _decide to tell him, he certainly wasn't sure if he'd be happy with the answer.

He wasn't able to mull over the situation any further as he felt Wheeljack suddenly jerk his shoulder, all but toppling the unsuspecting medic as the Wrecker marched with a grim determination.

"Look, Wheeljack, just wait 'til Optimus comes back-" Bulkhead first began, then was cut off by a cynical scoff.

"And how long'll that take? Two klicks or two breems? Every second I waste here I could be spending pounding Dreadwing back into the ground where he came from!" His glare at Bulkhead was heavy with accusation, and all the Wrecker could do was sigh.

"Jackie, I know you're upset- Seaspray was a brother to me like every other Wrecker. But you caused some serious damage out there-"

"I'll say!" a seething Agent Fowler cut in as he entered through the base elevator, turning a stare very similar to Wheeljack's own towards the white mech. "Your little 'cowboy antics' nearly blew our cover!"

"Cover?" Wheeljack asked with a raised optic ridge. Bulkhead explained how they disguised themselves among the unsuspecting humans, and Ratchet couldn't help but wonder when Optimus' cover was going to be blown sky high.

**xx**

"Lord Megatron, I live to serve," Dreadwing recited as he knelt on the Command Centre bridge before the warlord.

"Rise, Dreadwing," Megatron commanded with a thoughtful glint in his optics. "Loyalty such as your's is a rare commodity." _'And Primus knows we need loyalty around here...'_ His ranks were dropping like flies- first simple Eradicons and Vehicons and now competent officers. Still, at least they wouldn't be too missed...

"Mine runs deep and true. Yet it is not loyalty alone that brought me here," Dreadwing confessed. "I seek confirmation of the demise of one whom I considered a brother." Scratch that- _two _of them wouldn't be too missed. Megatron had only learnt of Skyquake's residence on earth after Starscream's departure from the Decepticons- a pity considering it would have given him another excuse to throw the Seeker off the Nemesis flight deck for not disclosing the location of a Sleeper to him.

"How did you learn of his passing?"  
"My twin and I shared a split spark- two halves of the same life force..." Megatron's interest piqued at the mention of split sparks- considering what had recently happened considering such strong familial bonds. "Even across the galaxy I sensed when he emerged from stasis on this planet, and when his spark was no more." It was all he could do to stop himself from grinning at this new information. _'So _that's _why she was in such pain...' _Megatron was wondering why Airachnid had clutched her spark chamber so tightly in apparent agony when she made her escape from the Nemesis just days ago. As for her reaction to his termination of that tiny, Scraplet-sized protoform that was crawling all over his floors, it only confirmed his previous suspicions.

_'Such a shame to not be able to see the full results of my dominance,'_ he thought with sick regret. '_But at least the effects are certain to be long lasting..."_


	5. Chapter 5

_Awww thank you all for your lovely reviews on the last chapter, readers 3 Reading them put a grin on my face (as well as several giggles) and I'm absolutely ecstatic that people are liking this. Apologies in advance if I'm not releasing chapters fast enough, but when it comes to chapters I can't just write it all out in one go- I need frequent breaks to rest my mind (and fingers) that can sometimes last as long as a week, __or even more. But I aim to at least start each chapter every week to have it ready for you all come the weekends :) _

**xx**

"Have you thought of a name?"

Airachnid took a slow sip of energon before answering. Optimus had so far remained silent since the sparkling's optics onlined, simply watching the enchanting, young blue orbs and occasionally letting his own flick upwards towards her. His question almost made her splutter with spiteful laughter. _'Stuck with a Decepticon's brat and all he can think of is her _name?_'_

"That wasn't exactly a priority," she mumbled, still savouring the last few drops of energon on her glossa. She set the empty cube down next to her, lying back on the rocks and pointing her weary optics to the ceiling. Nothing but granite darkness above. She missed the stars, celestial guardians that had constantly stood vigil for her. On Archa Seven, on Cybertron, even on the Nemesis... through even the tiniest windows she always saw them burning their print on the cosmos. Now they had abandoned her, and she'd never felt more spark-shatteringly alone. Just as she was about to fall into such a pressing void though, a sudden tug at her spark caught on her and drew her attention to Optimus. He lay like her against the rocks, one servo propping him up and the other holding the sparkling, whose optics burned even brighter than when they first whirred to life and locked intently onto the Prime. Airachnid realised why when she felt the tug on her spark again.

Optimus frowned at the sight of Airachnid holding a servo over her spark chamber and optics squeezed shut. He couldn't even begin to place where her obvious distress might be stemming from- either from the residual pain of sparkling birth, or loss, or something else entirely stabbing at the core of her emotional shell. She didn't move when he moved his servo to the remaining energon cube next to her, lifting it up and bringing it to the sparkling's mouth. Only now did her optics look away from him, and down to the energon being held to her lips. With a faint chirp she let the liquid slowly leak into her, sending her growing systems whirring and tiny spark alight with glee. Optimus smiled at the sparkling drinking away in his arms.

"You know why she's been staring at you all evening?" Airachnid queried, servos calmly placed on her knees and previous agony all but dissolved. Optimus pointed his optics to her and shook his head.

"She's imprinted on you," she stated apathetically, faceplate falling on her knees as they curled up to her chest. "For all she knows... _you _are her sire." Optimus took a moment to fully process the revelation, looking down at the sparkling with new eyes. She stared back as intensely as before, lip corners upturned. He numbly lifted his servo and raised his smallest digit in front of her. Emitting a series of joyous clicks the sparkling grasped the digit with all of her own, optics appraising it with unbridled curiosity.

_'Sire...' _It was common knowledge that sparklings developed an instant bond with whatever they first saw, but Optimus had never heard of it being so strong as to be imprinting. Almost as if to confirm Airachnid's statement, the child pulled on the digit to bring it closer to her and nuzzled her helm against it. Optimus didn't want to think that this was the same creature that he had threatened to terminate a breem ago as another digit stroked at the strange bump on the back of her head- a small tangle of metal wires that reached to her tiny neck.

Across from them Airachnid looked on with sickness still heavy in her spark. Just when she had reached the fateful 'things can't get any worse' checkpoint, _those damn eyes just _had _to open._ Those damn, blue beautiful eyes...

Wait, blue?

Airachnid had only noticed the abnormal colour of her optics then; a rival cyan to Optimus' own. If they weren't destined to be standard Decepticon red, then they should have been violet or pink as her own were... The night kept getting stranger and the moon hadn't even halfway crossed the sky. She could see its light creeping into the cave though, leaking through the cracks in the stones. Optimus notice her wistful stare at the tiny beams of light, the only indicator of the world outside this dark sanctuary, and Optimus shifted the sparkling gently in his hold as she chirped lightly.

"Perhaps the child would benefit from a small venture beyond this cave... and we might find inspiration for her designation..."

"'We'?" Airachnid asked with a raised optic ridge, suppressing her relief at the thought of finally seeing her stars again.

"You said yourself that she considers me her father... I believe that gives me the responsibility of her designation, if only partially." As if she could say no to that smile. She tried to push herself to her pedes, clawing onto the rock wall for support. When she tripped from taking a step forward she felt large servos close easily around her, and looked up to Optimus' concerned expression. But before he could ask if she was able to walk, Airachnid quickly collected herself and swept her child out of his other servo, marching past him to the cave opening at the front, neck held high and back legs clicking together. That simple show of haughty independance sent a shock through Optimus' spark that came out as a sigh from his vocaliser. Primus, even the way her hips swished in rhythm was like Elita's own! He trudged after her into the envelope of night air ahead, optics fighting back the coolant that filmed them over.

**xx**

"I'll talk to him," Bulkhead muttered to the other Autobots as Wheeljack marched to the base entrance, leaving a trail of heated frustration behind him. Ratchet exhaled in relief at the Wrecker finally taking his leave, who'd been pacing up and down the entire length of the base during his wait for Optimus' return. The medic was on the verge of lightening Bulkhead's workload and breaking something himself when Wheeljack blew a fuse and stormed off while yelling "Frag your damn systems, if Prime don't wanna be here then neither do I!" As Bulkhead trailed behind him, Arcee turned her gaze to Ratchet.

"He should be back by now," she noted with concern, crossing her servos across her chassis. "What if he's in trouble?"

"If he was, he would have commed for help," Ratchet reassured her, optics still glued to the computer panels. "Whatever Optimus is doing, he can handle it."

"Hmm," the femme voiced skeptically, leaning on a stack of boxes. "There's something up with him."

"He has been... rather on edge recently," Ratchet admitted carefully, tapping digits slowing their pace. "But I don't see it as anything to worry about."

Arcee's optics suddenly snapped wide, and turned back towards him. "Ratchet... do you think..." She paused uneasily before continuing. "They've... started again?"

"What's 'they'?" Bumblebee beeped, looking from femme to medic curiously. Ratchet took a brief look at the scout before his optics fell to the floor, and Arcee's darted around.

"You'd be too young to remember it, Bumblebee..." Ratchet mumbled while extracting himself from his station. "What we refer to is... something that Optimus suffered from during the war. Flashbacks and memories to something that he lost..."

"Well, spit it out doc, what are we talking about?"Bumblebee was expecting a glance of scorn from the medic for his impertinence, but he didn't even shoot a dagger his way as he walked with a solemn air next to Arcee. He answered with only two words.

"Elita One."

"Who's Elita One?" Ratchet's helm turned towards the question that Raf asked, looking up from his video game and giving a worried voice to the other childrens collective buzzing thoughts. They'd been mostly quiet during Wheeljack's tantrum and Arcee's worries, but now they looked to Ratchet for an explanation. At first he thought the medic wasn't going to answer, but he managed to huff a reply past his vocaliser.

"Elita was Optimus' spark mate."

"What's that, like a wife or something?" Miko asked, springing up from the couch and leaning on the railing.

"_Ohoo no, _a spark bond is a much closer connection than what you call 'marriage', though the concept is similar," Ratchet replied. "It is the ultimate show of commitment- two sparks joined as one."

"I heard of Elita," Bumblebee whirred in confirmation. "When I was out of duty after Tyger Pax, there was all these rumours going around about her. I never really listened to them though- too busy drowning in anaesthetic at the time." Now Ratchet brought out his glare at Bee's jab of humour on such a serious topic. He couldn't really blame him though- if he didn't listen, then he didn't know.

"So if she's so important to Optimus, how come she isn't here?" Miko asked further, resting her head on her arms. In the background Jack pressed his palm to his face; _of course _she hadn't caught the tell-tale grim tone that Ratchet spoke with. Then again, he was _always _like that.

"Ah," the medic began, turning his helm away for a second and letting his optics wander as he thought of how to explain it all. 'She was killed' wouldn't do. 'She's missing' was just lying. Luckily Arcee came up with an answer for him.

"She was taken from us," Arcee choked out, servos stiffly falling to her sides and faceplate twisted into a scowl. "By the Decepticons... by _those fragging spiders..." _Her helm snapped away from the gathered company and her peds carried her swiftly away from the foyer, stamping along one of the base corridors to her quarters.

"Woah... who glitched her hard drive?"Bumblebee beeped while Jack looked at the motorcycle fast retreating worriedly. Ratchet sighed before he gave an explanation for Arcee's explosive reaction.

"Arcee was particularly close to Elita One... in many ways, she was both a mentor and a dear friend. After Optimus she was hit hardest by her... demise." The medic's optics shuttered solemnly at the memory of that day. When Optimus returned to Iacon, alone and with all the grief in the universe weighing on his shoulders...

"What was Arcee talking about when she said 'spiders'?" Ratchet's attention flicked over to Jack, who still had concern on his features. "Does she mean...Airachnid?" Even now, months since he and his mother had been hunted by the Decepticon, he still saw dreaded spindly razors when he closed his eyes.

"No, she was referring to the spiders of Archa Seven- a mostly uncharted planet distant even from Cybertron," Ratchet replied, calling on the little that was known about it. Archa Seven was virtually unknown before the war, and there was never the time nor resources to spare to mount a scout or investigation of the planet. After what happened there, no Cybertronian in their right mind wanted to even think about it, let alone set ped on it. He wanted to just leave the explanation at that, but the children looked up at him, waiting for him to continue.

"I'll take it from here, Ratch'." The medic didn't even notice Bulkhead returning until he heard his voice from behind, turning his helm to clouded, sorrowful optics. "After all... I was there." The Wrecker turned to the children, trying not to focus too much on Miko. He took a long look at the three of them, and heaved a deep sigh before he set off;

"Near the end of the war, Optimus had tracked the Nemesis to the planet, where it had landed after sustaining heavy damage in a firefight with the Autobot warship; The Ark. He was going to confront Megatron once and for all on its surface, while their armies fought against each other. By now, Optimus and Elita had spark bonded, so he forbade her from fighting with him to ensure her safety. But during the chaos of the battle Megatron managed to send Decepticons onto the Ark... and took Elita hostage. I watched Optimus with a sword to Megatron's neck, and above them a pair of Decepticon _scum _had Elita in their filthy claws... if he killed Megatron, they killed her. I watched him forced to disarm and let Megatron go... and I watched as he sent a fusion shot right into Elita's legs. He _was _aiming for her spark chamber but I managed to throw his aim off when I saw what he was gonna do. Of course the fragger was gonna kill her anyway..." Bulkhead's voice had slowly grown into a snarl over the course of the story, and his faceplate was twisted by rage as his engines growled with fury.

"Jeez..." Miko whispered with eyes teary and a hand at her mouth. Raf and Jack kept their gazes plastered to their shoes, not wanting to meet the glare of Bulkhead's optics.

"So where do the spiders come in?" Bumblebee asked impatiently, breaking the melancholy atmosphere with a strike of beeping lightning. Bulkhead immedietely rounded on him and spat out his answer.

"After Megatron _maimed _her, those things appeared all around the field before anyone could blink an optic. _On top _of all the casualties from their attack, there was a rock slide; she got buried, spiders swarmed her, spark signal went out, _poof_." Bumblebee flinched back from the intensity of Bulkhead's stare, optics wide and backstrut bent. It was a long moment before Bulkhead realised how close his enraged faceplate was to Bee's, and he pulled back with dazed eyes.

"S-sorry Bee, it's just... the look on Optimus' face when he saw Elita like that..." A servo rubbed his helm in discomfort. "I'd never seen him so...angry before. Or ever since." Ratchet _hmphed _something in confirmation, remembering the permanent look of grim determination that was etched into the Prime's faceplate since his return to Cybertron after Archa Seven. Determination to push onwards, to destroy Megatron, to hold back the guilt...

"Optimus only survived because their spark bond was still young; if it was a long-term bond, the loss would have consumed him and took his life as well. Over the centuries Optimus has dealt with it as much as he could, but he is still prey to flashbacks to when Elita One was alive. Arcee too had such visions after Tailgate's death- though on a much less devastating scale," Ratchet said. "Not dissimilar to what you humans call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We suspect that he may be suffering from an onset as we speak, possibly triggered by something."

_'Something that he's going to have a _hell _of a time explaining to me.' _

**xx**

"You seem unaffected at the sparkling having established such a bond to me," Optimus commented as he walked behind Airachnid, optics bright and alert in search of danger amongst the trees that lined the canyon, all but blocking out the sky. The femme was keeping close to the ravine walls, oblivious to everything except the path ahead and the child in her arms. She gave a simple shrug, slowly drifting along the cold dirt under her heels.

"I suspected something like it would happen," she said in a tone that was hollow as she dug out the lie underneath. Truthfully, in all her contemplations of her survival, the Decepticons and, reluctant as she was to admit it, Optimus himself, the implications of imprinting were the last thing on her mind. If anything, it had completely lapsed from her mind until she felt the sparkling's bond hook onto her spark and pull her into the network that had been crafted between the three bots. She didn't know how she should have felt about it all- angry? Annoyed? Maybe even... relieved?

Well, in the end at least it was better Optimus than Megatron. A _Scraplet _would have been better than that sick fragger. At least then she could just send a heel through its head and be done with it.

"We are nearing the end of the ravine," Prime voiced as the walls around them widened the further they ventured, ending an opening crowned by an arch and looking over a valley. Airachnid responded by quickening her pace, optics pointed forward as her view of the valley retreated, overtaken by the night sky above that slowly leaked into her vision. _'Almost there...'_

Optimus was stumbling over the rocks as he worked to catch up with the femme, not wanting to leave her side for a klick. He didn't trust the cold and quiet evening ambience that hung like a blanket over them, nor did he trust her with the sparking. Airachnid brought herself to a stop at the very edge of the opening, still as the stars that were sprinkled across the swirls of blue and black so far above them.

If there was one thing Optimus could appreciate about Earth, it was its celestial viewpoints. On Cybertron atmosphere was near non-existent, offering a mirror into the black void of space that surrounded the planet and offered itself as 'the Universe'. But even with such an ideal sky, as Cybertron so quickly expanded the rise of the buildings, spacescrapers and fortresses that spiralled from the planet's layered, buried core all but cracked the heavens into a scattered, mismatched jigsaw. Even when Optimus could see into space from the very top layer of Cybertron or from the view port of the Ark, anything that would have been of interest or beauty was far out of sight and reach. At times he'd be lucky enough to glimpse a lone nebula or supernova amongst the pinpricks of stars, but the chaos of war left little room for appreciation of nature. But when he arrived on Earth so long ago, backed by only barest backbone of his Autobots, he took the time to admire this young, beautiful new world. One evening he stood alone on the crest of a bare plateau, silently watching in awe at the sky bleeding away its last colours of orange, red and streaks of purple. Blue, black and other darker palettes blended into the velvet night and the bright spokes of stars stabbed through, the single moon rising to join the blooming cosmos spread out before him. In the years since that evening, Optimus had never seen anything more magnificent on Earth. And from the look of enchantment in Airachnid's optics locked to the sky, he wasn't the only one so charmed by the sight.

"Scorpio," Prime muttered absently, noticing the particular arrangement of stars hovering over them; a trail of white dots ending in a triangle, with a single red star at the formation's heart. Airachnid glanced sideways at him in question, while her talons absently caressed the sparkling as it burrowed into the warmth of her chest.

"What the humans call the collection of stars above us- a constellation. They have many myths and traditions surrounding them, like the old stories of Cybertron." Optimus glanced along to her, expecting to see her yawning in boredom. But to his surprise Airachnid had torn her gaze away from the night and instead oriented it to him patiently waiting for him to continue. With a cough of his air vents, Optimus recited what he knew of the human's space-based speculations.

"They call it a 'zodiac'- one of twelve that leave their mark during each month of the year. It was said that if a human child was born during a certain month that they would have certain personality aspects and traits according to their zodiac sign." Airachnid still listened while her attention turned to the constellation, optics skirting the tail of the scorpion while a talon at the back of her sparkling's head curved around the small threads of metal that stemmed from there, following the movement of her eyes.

"Scorpio, did you say?" Optimus nodded as Airachnid contemplated the name, murmuring it under her breath. "Scorpio... Scorpi_a_..."

"Are you thinking of naming your sparkling?" Optimus asked, optics flicking down to the child in question and meeting again with whirring blue lights staring up at him.

"It would be a fitting name as any. And I can't just go on calling her 'pest'." Even with her icy words Airachnid felt the frost over her spark melting away as Scorpia swept her young gaze over her protectors and parted her lips in a chirping smile as Prime knelt back down closer to her. "And Optimus..." He looked back up at Airachnid, back legs twitching somewhat nervously.

"It's _our _sparkling now," she corrected with a smile of her own.

**xx**

**Note: **_Scorpia's brother would have been named Antares, after the star in Scorpio that is sometimes referred to as 'the Heart of the Scorpion' (thank you Emmy for that lovely idea, and the beautiful new cover image :) )_


	6. Chapter 6

_ Insecticon: You, sir, are a mind reader- I had that song in the back of my head all throughout Optimus' and Elita's/Air's scenes together :D_

_Huge thank you's as well to reviewers and readers alike; you keep my so-called piano fingers typing away! :)_

_Breem= Approx. two hours_

_Vorn= Month_

_Stellar cycle= Year_

**xx**

Ratchet's helm snapped towards the Ground Bridge portal, which glowed a bright white leaking green as Optimus emerged from the vortex.

_'About damn time,' _the old mech grumbled, clicking off of the data screen he'd been blankly staring at for the past breem and approaching Prime with thinly veiled impatience. Arcee was working on nudging Bumblebee awake- he'd since fallen into recharge during their wait for Optimus' return- and the two kept their distance from the leader somewhat cautiously. Optimus raised an optic ridge at their reaction, sensing the awkward silence that had settled over the base at some point during his absence.

"Another 'thorough scout'?" Arcee asked, servos over her chest and optics lowered with... concern? What _had _they been discussing when he was with Airachnid... Optimus nodded silently to her question while he tried to glean some understanding from Bumblebee's own stance and expression. Same optics, same hunched shoulders and door wings lowered in a defensive position. The night still hadn't ceased its little perplexities.

"Where are the children?"

"We took them home a little while ago," Arcee replied, saying nothing of the fact that it was well past midnight in their time. "Did you find out anything about the energon?" Optimus had to take a moment to remember his whole cover for leaving the base in the first place- to 'investigate' the energon stain that Airachnid unknowingly left behind.

"Yes, it- uh... appears that the source was from myself," he lied with a touch of embarrassment. "I seemed to have received an injury during my initial patrol and leaked the energon that we saw this morning." Arcee's sigh betrayed her disappointment and belief of the lie, and Bumblebee whirred in a similar tone. Ratchet would never be so easily convinced though.

"Well, if that is the case Optimus, I'll need to ensure that the injury isn't serious." When Optimus turned to face the medic, his optics showed anything but professional compassion. The blue glare was hard and burned with a harsh finality: _"We need to talk." _Prime felt like a Scraplet walking into a pit of acid as he followed Ratchet into the med-bay. He heard Arcee ask out loud "Where'd Bulkhead go?" before the doors hissed close and blocked out all outside noise. Optimus was trapped with the truth, and it was fast slipping from his grasp.

"Sit," Ratchet ordered mechanically, pointing a digit to the berth at his left as he flicked through his array of medical equipment. He did as instructed, leaning on the edge of the berth and trying to stop his optics from sticking to the floor. He wasn't ready to tell Ratchet about her... about _them. _From the way Ratchet had sat himself stone-still on the opposite berth though, it looked like he wasn't going to have a choice.

"You said you'd tell me if I trusted you. I did. I _lied _to the team just as you did. Now tell me what I'm betraying _their _trust for. **Now.**" Optimus had rarely seen Ratchet speak so... intensely, something that he couldn't label as anger but came close enough brimming from his words. His optics never left Optimus' faceplate, and his scowl didn't shift as he awaited an answer. How could he even _begin _to explain? Furthermore, how could he expect him to understand?

"In that forest..." Prime began, flexing his hands on his knees and clawing into the armour seems. "There now lives a- _two _helpless bots. Two victims of Megatron's atrocity that I cannot allow to go unaided." Ratchet was silent for a long while, expression unchanged.

"Decepticons?" he finally asked, tone more neutral than before but optics still spilling out his current odium.

"Former." The medic shuttered his optics closed with a sigh that Optimus was unable to read any specific emotion from, lowering his helm and pressing a hand to the pounding metal. _'Primus, Optimus you're too... good for your own good.'_

"And that's all you'll say about it?" Ratchet barked, servos rising to cross over his chest.

"All I can and _will _say for now. I need... time."

"The one thing that we have in a constant short supply."

"I realise that more than anyone, Ratchet, but..." Optimus was unable to supplement a reason, even as he furiously racked his processor for something- _anything _that would convince Ratchet that what he was doing was worth the effort and moral trauma. To his surprise though, the medic huffed out an air cycle of _very _reluctant acceptance and his optics' furious glow decreased to show simmering embers.

"I still want to examine you."

"But I am healthy-"

"No, you're not," he interrupted Prime's protest, steel optics now starting to flicker and turn away from him. "I know when something is wrong with you, Optimus. Don't think for _one klick _that you can hide something like that so easily. And you're not leaving this med-bay until I help you fix it."

"There is _nothing _wrong with me, Ra-" Optimus insisted, an edge creeping into his voice as Ratchet's scowl returned.

"They've started again," he stated bluntly, feeling almost insulted at the feigned look of ignorance that Prime put on. _'He _really _does think I'm a fool...' _Ratchet rumbled another deep sigh, dropping his helm heavily and bringing it back up to face Optimus with his faceplate completely rearranged- optics and ridges lowered with mouth frowning solemnly.

"Optimus, if this is about Elita O-"

**"**_**Don't. Say. Her name to me." **_The medic was shocked by the snarl that Optimus let out, his neck holding his helm down so that his grimace was hidden. In all the time that Ratchet had known Optimus, helping him for centuries deal with the devastating loss of his spark mate, he'd never seen such an inferno of rage that leaked from the residual light of his hidden optics. Bulkhead had said that he'd seen first-hand Prime's release of grief and pure anger while on the battlefield, and had most likely suffered through outbursts on the journey back to Cybertron. By the time the Ark touched down, Optimus was but a hollow shell bled dry of any emotion. It had taken a joor before he would even talk to anyone outside of his exclusive inner circle, and even then it was simple one-word growls. Another vorn passed before he would even consider letting Ratchet help him. At the time the medic thought that he was so enveloped in grief that it was near impossible for him to think straight, but when he finally coerced Prime to receive the therapy, he saw that his ties to Elita ran far further down and wide, a complex net of tangled sweet memories that acted as his only link to a precious and precarious time before the war. And that were instantly slashed from her demise. He didn't want aid because he refused to accept the crushing reality of her death, refused to burden himself or his Autobots with even further trouble and trauma; the list of reasons he gave Ratchet was endless. But most sacred and importantly of all, he didn't want to forget her. The sting of her absence kept her eternally forefront in his mind, and Ratchet sincerely suspected that her lingering memory was all that stopped Prime from going insane those first few weeks.

"Very well, I won't," Ratchet said softly, sanding down his rough facade to adjust to the jolt of Prime's response. "But if you _are _going through... relapses-"

"Is _that _all they are to you?" Optimus growled dangerously, slowly rotating his helm to look to the medic. His scowl was etched into his faceplate, and through the film of coolant covering his optics his wrath flared up for the first time in millennia. "A simple _processor glitch?_ Has every casualty of this _Primus forsaken _war morphed into nothing but some _statistic _for you? That's all that she is now... one spark lost in a sea of thousands. Because of him... because of me." The dreaded self-loathing was returning, and Ratchet had to stop from slapping himself for allowing the first thought in his mind to be 'more paperwork'. Of course Optimus was right. During the war every day was nothing but a blurr of death and Well-bound victims praying for nothing more than its sweet release, and like all medics that survived he allowed himself to become wholly densensitised to the suffering right in front of him.

Optimus gave his helm a frantic shake with another grimace, shuttering his optics to wipe away the coolant. He oriented the orbs back up to Ratchet, who could think of nothing to say that wouldn't set him off on an emotional rampage.

"I've already lost one life that I could have saved. And I'll be _fragged _if I let it happen again," he muttered, scowl evening out but still deep on his faceplate and chestplates shovelling out air cycles. "_May I be excused?" _he asked with a tone of furious mockery. Ratchet nodded blankly, pretending not to hear the bitter sarcasm as Optimus marched himself out of the room. The med-bay seemed to boil from the heat of his rage, and Ratchet had to suppress a shiver from the cold that he left behind.

**xx**

_"Jazz, I _need _to get back to wo-"_

_"What'chu _need, _Oreo, is a free night on the town. And by Primus, I _swear _you will get one."_

_"Ugh, fine, fine, just stop calling me that!" Orion groaned as Jazz pulled him along by the servo along the shuffling line of bots bathed in neon light. When he asked Jazz what on earth they were waiting so long to see, the mech just gave a sly chuckle and told him to be patient. Orion considered such a thing to be impossible when every five klicks he was being pushed from behind by a boisterous red mech with cannons larger than Ultra Magnus' shoulder plates mounted on each servo. Said servos came ever closer to knocking him around the helm just before Orion could finally move down the line when it shifted. He knew intitiating any conversation with Prowl would be pointless- if he could even manage get Prowl to tear his yellow visor's glare away from the data pad in his hands (Orion resolved to find out just how he managed to concentrate with a set of rotors bashing into his back). So it was all he could do to sigh and just suffer through it all while Jazz busied himself with a red and orange femme in front of him, much to the chagrin of her mech companion. Seeing the jealously etched into the mech's faceplate made Orion's mind lapse to the object of his own affections- Ariel._

_How long had it been since his graduation from Iacon Academy? Two, three stellar cycles? In the crushing monotony that he called his work life at the Hall of Records, time had blended together into places when he was awake and those blissful glimpses of dark that recharge afforded him. He was rarely able to see his old Academy friends nowadays; Ratchet, Blaster, Dion and others had been stationed outside of the Iacon city centre where Orion was all but confined to. He was lucky enough to have found a friend in Jazz as fellow worker in the Hall- unless he had _another _borrowed data pad overdue- and Prowl was a frequent peruser of the records within whenever he needed to update a police protocol or look up logged data on a bot. But Ariel was a different matter. Even though the last time he'd had the honour of seeing her was at their graduation, donned in the traditional black ceremonial armour that hugged so well to her frame, his mind still saw her as crisp and clear as ever. In the ragged and organised chaos of his life she remained the single invariable- the smiling singularity that he had slowly but surely found himself in love with. It was a classic case of a 'more than just friends' situation, but Orion had never been brave enough to confront it head-on. He had deeply valued their friendship together, and he didn't want to do anything that might upset it- or her. While in the Academy he busied himself with his studies, and his work ate up every piece of spare time that he had nowadays. While Orion was more or less accepting of it, Jazz was certainly not- and he wasn't convinced that his friend was content with such a boring lifestyle. A day of relentless harrassment and a breem wandering the Iacon high streets, and here he weas dragging this reluctant pedes along the ground with attitude to match._

_"Look, Jazz, I appreciate you taking an interest in my well-being-"_

_"No ya' don't," he interrupted with an endearing grin. _

_"-but I'm not really... a fan of the whole 'social scene', you know?" Orion sighed, trying to keep an iota of politeness in his weary tone. He'd spent too many late nights in the Hall looking out over the neon-speckled streets that marked the Iacon nightlife- mechs too overcharged to even work their T-Cogs stumbling out of the bars and clubs that lined every street, and gangs cheering their sparks out for Primus knows what drunken reason- to have any desire to be a part of it._

_"Tell ya' what, Orion," Jazz reasoned as the orange femme and her scowling companion disappeared into the darkness beyond the giant circle of the club entrance." We go in, we have a good time, and next week we'll check out those Gladiator Arenas that you keep talkin' 'bout. Sound good?" Orion's helm perked up at Jazz's proposal, thinking it over while Prowl scoffed at yet another mention of 'those damn arenas'. Ever since Orion had heard of the unrest in Kaon apparently sparked by the gladiator Megatronus he would not _shut up _about it. It was enough to make an inferior-minded bot's head burst._

_"Who knows, might get a look at ol' Megatronus 'imself," Jazz added at Orion's nod, nudging him with an elbow. _

_"Yes, Primus forbid if his schedule becomes _too _full of illegal combat to humour visitors," Prowl spoke up for the first time that evening, still keeping his optics on his data pad. "Or would he not be able to _read_ a schedule even if he had one?"_

_"Hey hey, there's our Prowl! Where ya' been, how ya' doin', pick up any souveniers for us down in Aftville?" Prowl huffed a long-suffering sigh at Jazz's drilling laughter as they finally reached the front door of the nightclub- blocked by a large hulk with a piercing monoptic red stare flicking from the party of three to the board in his servos._

_"State designation."_

_"Jazz is in the house, baby," he answered with a smirk, to two pairs of rolling blue optics behind him. The optic scanned the board for a klick before stretching his jaw in a yell over Jazz's still-smug faceplate._

_"DESIGNATION IS NOT DOCUMENTED ON GUEST LIST!"  
"Come again now?" Jazz asked in disbelief with flat-lined optics as he suffered through the cloud of exhaust that the bouncer-bot's yells expelled over him.  
"THOSE WHO ATTEMPT TO ENTER WITHOUT VALID INVITATION SHALL BE DENIED ENTRANCE AS SUCH IS OUR MIGHTY AND GLORIOUS MASTER'S ORDERS!"_

_"I thought you said you knew the owner, Jazz!" Orion hissed into his audio, feeling the rest of the line jostle with impatience behind him while Prowl made a point of ignoring the whole scene. _

_"Ah, don' worry 'bout it, Oreo- this dude's got just a bit a'... 'low RAM' if ya' know what I mean," Jazz explained with a jerk of his thumb to the seething mass of purple and green plating, before turning back to it. "Lookie here, ya' big lugnut, if we could just speak to Mirage for a sec'-" _

_"NEGATORY!" Two hooks that acted as hands suddenly grabbed Jazz by the scruff of his neck, threatening to throw the slim squirming mech onto the side of the street. Orion thought it was a new record in making before him- least amount of glasses of high-grade ingested before being thrown out of a bar- when the bouncer suddenly froze. Jazz was still kicking his legs up in an attempt to dislodge himself from the grip when there was something shimmering over the mech's shoulder- a sharp white digit suddenly forming out of nowhere tapping on the metal._

_"Stand down, boy," a slowly emerging blue-accented white mech ordered lazily, pushing past the much larger mech as if he was a door that was in his way. Yellow optics watched Jazz being dropped onto the red line of ground under him, not even sparing a glance to bewildered Orion. _

_"You do know there's a VIP entrance at the side, Jazz?" Mirage asked as Jazz dusted himself off while muttering furiously about how 'damn security drones can't tell an A-lister in the making'. When he realised that he'd made both himself and his friends wait in line for two breems and no reason, he was quick to escape Orion's pointed glare by looping a servo around Mirage's shoulders and letting himself being lead inside._

**__xx**

_*gasp* What's this? COMIC RELIEF ATTEMPTS? IN AN ANGST STORY?!_

_BURN THE HEATHEN, GET THE FIREWOOD OUT_

_Yeah, the last paragraph is another flashback that kind of spiralled into something random and detached. Rest assured, the flashback will be continued in the next chapter with an appearance from everyone's favourite fem-bot._

_A cookie to anyone who spots the Animated character cameo as well ;)_


	7. Chapter 7

_Oh would you look at that, a semi consistent update._

_What I thought would just be a flashback continuation eventually evolved into... this. Yep, more rambling with Elita and Ironhide popping up (and some daily dose of Chromia, oh my). Not entirely happy with how some parts came out, but such is life in the zone._

_Also The Circle is a club from the IDW comics (specifically _Spotlight: Blurr) _and I'm using the IDW representations for Jazz, Prowl, Blurr and Ironhide. _

**xx**

_The interior of the club reminded Orion of the time he passed by one of Kaon's industrial smelting pools, on an Academy tour of the city. It was mandatory that every attendee of the trip see how the miners of Kaon worked and lived- a rule that the supervisor was obviously not fond of by the way he wrinkled his olfactories when the time came to see the energon creation process. To this day Orion could not recall anything he learnt on that trip without as well bringing forth the searing scent of singed metal, raw energon and gallons of oil, as well as a buffeting heat on his faceplate. The situation wasn't so different here. Boxed in at a table booth with adamant Prowl on one side, Jazz and Mirage on the other and a sea of other assorted mechs stretching out as far as the optic could see- in this case it was to the glimpses of catwalk and stage stationed at the front that Orion caught when someone was kind enough to move their helm out of the way. He found himself trapped here by stupidly following Jazz inside, with Prowl automatically trailing after him. Mirage had led them past the crowded entrance, passing under the shadows of ledges and balconies that broke out of the dark surrounding walls and gliding along the red tiles underped. Other bots milling in the corners or sat at tables barely glanced at them, and when they did it was to catch a rare glimpse of Mirage mixing with the 'common' folk- or as common as could get in a club like this. 'The Circle' was one of Iacon's elite nightclubs that catered to only the highest profile of clientèle; be they politicians, entertainers, military personnel and every illustrious in-between. Of course neither three of the invited mechs qualified for that, but Jazz had many friends. And friends of those friends managed to land him in a cosy little friendship with The Circle's owner, Mirage. Orion had seen him enough in 'Cybertronian' magazine, once even on the front cover, to know that just being in his presence should have been an honour. _Should _have been._

_More neon flares, more bots at tables- Prowl made a sound of disgust at the sight of some of them hooked up to Simultronic- and one long tunnel of dark after the other. Somehow through the maze of spotlights and scarcely-armoured servers Orion managed to keep Mirage and Jazz in sight ahead of him, and finally sat down at the booth where he was effectively barricaded behind now. At first he thought he'd finally have a chance to ask Jazz what the frag he was supposed to do, or be waiting for, but he could barely get a word in edge-wise to the white mech's conversation with Mirage. Orion's weary sigh and the slump of his servos on the table was enough to set Prowl off._

_"I'm assigning myself to the bar," he announced in monotone, dropping his data pad back into subspace and stiffly raising himself from his seat to march to where the high-grade was circulating. Orion spared a glance back to Jazz- engrossed in an account of his infamous 'The Curious Incident of the Turbofox in the Night-time' story- before following suit, letting Prowl part the crowd with the abrupt authority that came with his job- or maybe it was him shoving aside the mechs in his way. From how Prowl all but riveted himself into the barstool, Orion guessed it was the latter as he took a seat _much _further down. He motioned for some standard high-grade to calm his circuits, keeping his glass close to him and taking small sips as his optics focused on the catwalk now right in front of him. There was still a crowd of shadows blocking a clear view, but at least he didn't need to break his neck cables just to see. _

_"First timer 'ere, huh?" A gruff voice asked to his right. Orion turned to face it, recognising the red cannon mech that almost decapitated him in line now sitting next to him. He chuckled at Orion's small nod, throwing back his high-grade and slamming the glass back down. Almost immediately the bartender appeared to refill it as he continued; "Ah' reckon ah know 'bout every bot in here, but ah never seen ya' 'round 'ere, ya' see." His accent sounded Hydraxian- the speed capital of Cybertron- but from the weight of his plating there was no way he was a racer. Probably a bodyguard or some security mech for a hotshot out to drown his pride and processor in 'grade._

_"I'm accompanying a friend," Orion replied, to another raucous laugh from the red mech._

_"Ah, a central Iacon boy!" Another laugh, another long swig of high-grade."Ah yeah, _never _would'a expected ta' see one'a _you _down 'ere." Orion wasn't sure what to make of the mech's disbelief, instead choosing to sip instead of speak._

_"Ya' don't look it though," he said with some contemplation, drawing an eye-ridge heavy look from Orion. "Most centro-'Cons, they'd be shakin' in their cases in a place like this."_

_"'Like this?'" Orion asked somewhat hesitantly, making the other bot splutter past his high-grade from another roar of laughter. _

_"Ya' don't know a lot 'bout 'The Circle', don'tcha?" A shake of the helm answered him. "Oh boy oh boy..." he said through his chuckles with rough pats on Orion's back, almost jolting his high-grade glass out of his hand."Let's just say... you're in for a show ta'night, uh... what was your name again now?"_

_"Orion Pax," he answered slowly, to an affirming grunt from the red mech._

_"Ironhide." He stuck out his glass to hit it against Orion's, tipping it back and emptying the rest of the high-grade dregs down his throat. 'Primus, how much can he _take_?' Orion wondered as the lights suddenly dimmed around the stage, spotlights switching on to full glare and highlighting the area. _

_"Here we go..." Ironhide said as he swirled himself around to face the stage, bracing his servos on his knees with blue optics narrowed, glossa clicking with anticipation. As Orion made to copy his stance, he saw why. _

_While before the stage was but an empty raised platform, it was now holding aloft a single shadowed figure at the very back and centre. As soon as it appeared, a rally of whistles swept up from the mechs gathered beneath and some let out premature cheers. From the shape Orion could discern that it was Cybertronian- all dark curves blended together and topped with bulk that defined a helm. It tipped up slightly, still shrouded in shadow even as it was surrounded by filtering light purple light overhead, and from hidden lips came a sound that Orion swore made his spark skip several beats. It was a single sweet tone of song, obviously from a femme, plucked from the very pits of her vocaliser and polished to shine out of the darkness that cloaked her from the prying optics of the mechs that Orion now realised had gathered solely to hear and see her. And hearing her... this femme that he had never known even existed, let alone had known would be here... _

_"Who is that?" The awestruck whisper left Orion's mouth without him realising it, all other senses focused on the lingering note that still rang in his audios and blocked out the rousing catcalls. _

_"Ya' never heard'a Elita One?" Ironhide didn't sound surprised, rather amused at the Iacon native's naivete towards his own city. "Then you have not lived, Pax..."_

_The note wavered ever so slightly, dipping down in a soft wave that washed over Orion and numbed his frame, his optics fluttering above the smile that spread on his faceplate. _'Elita One...' _His upturned lips formed the name as her's weaved lilting words into her melody. He'd seen little on Cybertron that he could call 'pretty' in the many years since he first emerged from the Well of All Sparks- to be subject to such a startling show of beauty tonight was a pure shock to his systems. When his optics refocused themselves, Elita's veil had dropped away to reveal regal rose armour layered over dusty pink protoform- of which was scarcely covered by the scandalous uniform that designated her as an dancer, a member of Iacon upper classes' renowned burlesque scenes. _

_That revelation wasn't what made Orion's shuttered optics suddenly snap open, nor his smile to falter and the spell that was offered by song to shatter in his audios. Of course he'd heard of the femmes that fell prey to the art caste and found themselves at the centre of many a mechs pointed lechery every night- he'd heard enough stories of smug politicians at the front desks of the Hall of Records to have at least a basis of _that _scene sorted out. He looked the femme over again as she sauntered along the catwalk, now accompanied by a backing band at the sides of the stage and still spilling out a harmony that had all but entranced the rest of the audience just as he had been. _

_Dusty protoform. Rose armour._

_Unless his memory was glitching as he thought his optics were, it was an inversion of Ariel's native colours. _

_She never did say what caste she'd been put into... A shoulder jabbing into Orion's side halted the whirring of his processor as it slotted the new facts together. _

_"That's ma' girl," Ironhide whispered in a chuckle, jerking a servo at the blue-armoured femme now at the side of the stage, a back-up dancer to further compliment Elita- No, _Ariel's _performance. _'Primus, she's even more beautiful now...'_ Orion thought even as he tried to respectfully veer his locked optics away from her. He shouldn't be seeing her like this, not after so long apart in such a shady circumstance... _

_She swooped down in an extravagant move, sweeping her gaze over the crowd and causing several impending spark attacks before she suddenly caught a flicker that was frantically darting from the stage to the floor. A curious sight that made her optics stall, and the flicker to meet with them. Blue with familiar blue, when Orion had a chance to take in the graceful contours of her faceplate before it twisted into shock._

_Not the reunion reaction he was expecting._

_Before he could even blink though, her expression was covered by a professional coolness that most would mistake for haught as she wrenched herself away from him, slipping back along the catwalk and strutting around the back of the stage. Her vocaliser carried on her signature tune as if she hadn't just suffered an implosion in her spark._

'Of all the times, of all the times, of all the _fragging times _he could have seen me_...' Still she had to go on with the show, strategically keeping her optics _away _from the central line of sight and trying to distract herself from the searing heat in her faceplate. At Elita's side Chromia threw a worried glance to her friend - pausing her glare at Ironhide who valiantly cheered at her embarrassment- but the lights went down again before Elita could make any sign of a reply. Finally the finishing act, always klicks too late... _

_Orion noticed how quickly she scurried off the stage when the final spotlight went out, the applause drowning out the last note of her music. _

_"Wha'did ah tell ya' huh?" Ironhide laughed around a fresh glass, oblivious to Orion's discomfort. "Ya' never forget your first show... though it doesn't hurt'ta refresh your memory every now an' then." All Orion could think about was how long Ariel had been working here, catering to Primus knows how many mechs here tonight and wandering drunk outside. Did she... enjoy it? The last thing Orion wanted was for Ariel to be stuck in work that she hated, of course, but... the thought of her basking in the limelight that was the glow of optics all around her saturated his spark with its first taste of envy._

_"Ah slag, there he goes again," Ironhide groaned at what was happening further down the bar- a blue racer mech had all but pinned Prowl down to the bar counter. "I'll see ya' when ah see ya," Ironhide bade farewell to Orion with a hard pat on the shoulder before he shot off down to pull the blue bot away ("Dammit Blurr, whaddav' ah told you 'bout drinkin' the charged high-grade!"). Seeing Prowl obviously occupied with spitting threats at Blurr and Jazz still trying to get in Mirage's good and guest books, Orion had the feeling that he wouldn't be missed by his companions if he was so inclined to slip backstage for a few klicks..._

_After the moderate chaos of extracting himself from the sea of seated mechs and emerging at the other side with only a few dents in his chassis, it was surprisingly easy to find and shove himself through the door that led to the dancer's dressing rooms- he just needed to be mindful of the security drones stationed at the corridor intervals. Forward, forward, left, hold back, right, forward, collide faces with the pink femme coming around the corner-_

_Orion was beginning to suspect that Ariel was all but used to hiding and recovering from shock as she barely stumbled from the impact, pointing her face towards him even as she rubbed where his crest had hit against it._

_"Orion!" Elita hissed, falling back into the shadows behind her and bringing her servos up to cover her torso, still baring burlesque armour that was in the process of being unclasped. "What the... what the _frag _are you doing here?!" Both here as in 'this club' and 'seemingly on his way to raid the dressing rooms'. Primus, it was bad enough that he saw her on display like that... _

_"I should ask you the same thing, Ariel," he answered with servos crossed, baring a scowl of disapproval. Even with his harsh expression she couldn't help appreciating how _damn _handsome he was. Well, he was good enough before but now... '_Not the right time, Elita. Not the right fragging time.'_ Her faceplate mirrored his own, features twisted in outrage; humiliated on stage, embarrassed beyond system recognition, _not getting to say goodbye...

_Most confrontations ended in tears, fears or- in those extreme cases- gears spread across the floor. Those that ended in abrupt outbursts of laughter usually did not even _qualify _as a confrontation. But here it was. Blue glare to blue glare, denta gritted and lips pursed... little details that dissolved in the next five klicks from the corrosive bubbles of laughter that suddenly burst past Orion's mouth. His servos hugged his chest as his cables ached from the strength of his guffaws, and he couldn't have kept eye contact if he had a cannon pointed to his head. Which he conveniently did another five klicks later- wielded by a surly security drone._

_Elita was still trying to understand what the slag was going through Orion's processor. Is he... enraged? Happy? Partially insane? She didn't understand his chain of reactions, from anger to amusement even in the face of the glowing gun barrel at his helm._

_"Is this bot bothering you, Elita?" a robotic standard drone voice asked, powering up its weapon as it asked. Elita looked from the drone back to Orion- drone to Orion, drone to Orion- for a long moment before realisation dawned. _

'We've known each other for stellar cycles... separated for less, and when we finally meet again, we're... _embarrassed?' Friends as close as they were weren't _allowed _to be so hostile over something so... so _stupid! _Orion understood how ridiculous it was before she did, which explained why he was struggling to work his vocaliser through the peals of laughter now accompanied with Elita's own. Even more they laughed because of... happiness. Pure undeniable happiness that came along with reunion of dear friends no matter the time or place._

_"We-we're fine, r-r-really, I i-invited him here," Elita spluttered as she stumbled, unable to even hold herself upright from the force of her laughs. The security drone frowned at Orion reaching to hold Elita up, still heaving out chuckles while the gun retreated from his helm._

_"Mirage will not be pleased with unauthorised visitors."_

_"I don't think he'll notice too much," Elita countered breathlessly, tugging on Orion's plating to pull him past her dressing room door. Before the drone could protest further the door slid closed, and the two bots collapsed on the floor in a giggling heap._

**xx**

_"You still haven't said why you're here."_

_Orion raised an eye ridge over his energon cube, looking to the dressing screen that Elita had disappeared behind. _

_"I believe _you _phrased it just a bit differently." She chuckled for another countless time that night, giving Orion another reminder of why he missed her so. Her laugh was much like her singing- brimming with stray strands of music and melody that only needed to be threaded with sweet words to make a spark melt. He'd never heard her sing before, but he recalled days spent in the academy library listening to her hum under her breath while he pretended to be studying data pads._

_"Remember when Blaster tried to drag us into Praxus before our graduation?" A weary groan answered him, and he smiled against the glass at his lips. "Think that- except he was successful."_

_"And who would this worthy replacement for Blaster be?" Elita emerged from behind the screen donned in a set of thin but modest recharge armour, seating herself on her berth just across from the lounge where Orion was placed. _

_"Jazz- the one who was following Mirage around like a swarm of Scraplets all evening." _

_"Oh, _that's _who he was..." Elita stretched along the berth surface, stifling a yawn. _

_"I can leave now, if you wish to get some sle-"_

_"Are you kidding, Orion?" Elita shot up in disbelief, optics gleaming and lips grinning. "After three stellar cycles we're _finally _back together- and I'm just gonna throw you out?" She shook her helm while humming 'nuh-uh' and threw herself next to Orion, resting her helm on his lap just like she did during many a lazy school day afternoon. "I don't care if I'm about to offline, I'm making every klick matter here." She turned to rest on her back, looking up at Orion as he set his energon down; two matching smiles._

_"Well, maybe we can start with how _you _ended up here..." Orion offered, stopping himself from stroking a servo across Elita's helm. "And where 'Elita One' came from." With small sighs and little grins Elita described how she received her designation to the art caste after graduation, and from further guild-specific training in Praxus ("Be glad we never went there, Orion- Ratchet would have thrown a fit at all the high-grade thrown around") she was picked up by Mirage to work in The Circle. At first she was just a back-up dancer, but the mechs obviously took a liking to her and eventually she rose to be one of the shining stars of the shows- Elita One was her stage name._

_"Explains how I'd never heard about it..." Orion contemplated, feeling the warmth of her processor reflected against his palm that rested beneath her helm. "So what happened to Ariel?"_

_"She's still here," Elita said with an air of hesitancy. "But I feel like... I've left that part of my life behind. I know it's... strange, seeing me up there like a trophy or something but... Ariel could never have done that. Never could have paraded in front of strangers, because she never needed to. But Elita- me, I mean..."_

_"Being Elita One makes you feel confident?" Orion asked to help spur her thoughts on. She nodded, sighing again past another yawn. "And does she- do you..._ like _being like that?" Elita pointed her optics upwards, looking through Optimus' for a long while with a slight frown before she gave a reply._

_"I don't know... At first I was terrified, of course. Of seeing all those optics on me, judging every move I made... But in the end... every day I'd hear about femmes looking up to me... like some kind of role model. Pit if I know why they do but... I guess I just like being that mentor figure. Someone that others can turn to for help. And in a business like this, there isn't much help that you can get from other femmes..."_

_"How so?"_

_"When I first started, the starring dancers might as well have spit oil over us all from how they treated everyone. No explanation why, they just liked to... glitch for the sake of glitchiness. Thank Primus they were gone by the time I stepped in to replace them, but it makes you think of how it is in the other cities..." Iacon's entertainment industry may be cut-throat at times, but it was heavenly compared to what might happen in cities like Kaon. "Chromia's got a habit of being _juuust _a bit rough sometimes, but she means well. I saw you met her mechfriend, Ironhide?"_

_"Oh, don't remind me..." Orion automatically reached a servo to rub at where a cannon managed to ding against it. Another bloom of beautiful laughter filled the night- swiftly cut short by the sound of a door slamming open._

_"Ah, Oreo, there you are!" Jazz exclaimed with twitchy optics and an even twitchier tone, barely noticing the femme spread across his lap. "Listen, hate to cut the meetin' short- hey. how you doin' honey? Anyway, we need to go. Like now. Like ASAP now." Every word was punctuated with a frenzied step forward, ending with Jazz grabbing onto Orion's servo and hauling him off of the lounge. _

_"I'll- uh- see you around, Elita!" Orion waved in farewell to a still-giggling Elita sprawled on the couch, waving weakly back before the two were separated by a familiar red mech- cannons at the whirring-barrel ready._

_"I told you we need to get outta-!"_

_"GET BACK 'ERE YA' SORRY PIECE'A SCRAP!" Ironhide bellowed as he chased the duo down the thin corridor, massive shoulders scraping the walls as Jazz all but dragged Orion behind him in his bid to escape._

_"Jazz-_agh!- _what the _frag _did you do now?!" _

_"Do **not **hit on the blue one, Orion. Whatever ya' do, do **not****-**" Jazz's pro-tip was sheared off along with a digit as he stretched a servo to the handle of the club's back exit. He paid no mind to his minor maiming as he threw himself and Orion out of the door- crashing down on metal pavement two stories below it._

_"Who puts a door up there anyway?!" Jazz asked to no-one as Ironhide frantically aimed a cannon in all third-dimensional sanctioned directions except straight down into the shadows below. Orion grumbled something as he assessed the new series of dents and scrapes now adorning his frame, and Jazz took a cursory glance over the sparking sheared stub that was what was left of his middle digit._

_"Say, uh, who was that girl you were with?" Jazz asked as he picked himself up and w__orked on brushing off the metal shavings that found their way lodged into his paintwork._

_"Ar-Elita One. She's a... dear friend of mine's."_

_"Huh." He opened up a commlink to Prowl, sending several hundred two-worded messages of 'pick up'. "So, uh... is she single?"_

_"**Don't. Even. Think about it."**_

**_xx_**

_And here come the people to bite my head off for making Elita something other than a warrior/soldier/etc. Or for my general crappy explanations. Though I wouldn't blame them, but dammit it just felt right making her a dancer._

_Oh boy that shameless flirt Jazz tho._


	8. Chapter 8

_Aaand she's at it again. I don't know what's with me and my habitual self-loathing nowadays but I REAALLY don't like how some parts of this chapter came out, but I've been stringing out on writing it long enough now and I hate to leave people waiting. So a little foreword in case anyone else thinks some parts are a bit dodgy. _

**xx**

Optimus awoke again with his helm pounding in painful concert with his spark. When he attempted to lift it he found it as heavy as lead, and the surface it fell back onto searing from the conduction of his overheating frame on the berth beneath him. He groaned over the frantic whirring of his cooling fans, and pushed himself up despite his lethargy, ignoring the dizziness at the corners of his vision. Somehow he managed to march valiantly back to the foyer of the base with barely a thought spared for his most recent relapse. As long as he didn't think about it, the agony in his spark would eventually subside...

He pulled back from entering when he saw only Ratchet present- the other Autobots having still not risen from their own _undisturbed _recharge. Optimus envied their easy comfort more than ever as he pushed himself to approach his old friend. One that he realised he had come very close to making an enemy of.

"Optimus." Ratchet's greeting was strangely surprised. "I-uh, wasn't expecting to see you awake so soon." Optimus raised an eyeridge over the medic's awkward tone.

_'Soon?' _But...surely he'd slept through the night? And it certainly wasn't rare for Ratchet to wake early in what the humans called mornings.

"How long was I recharging?" he asked uneasily, still mentally shaking off his sleep as Ratchet tried to keep his attention on his console.

"Just a breem," the medic answered in a mumble. Optimus would have groaned in more solitary conditions. No wonder he was so exhausted... but he could hardly drag himself back to his berth after seeing _that. _He was somewhat expecting Elita to be paying him another painful visit in the night, but there were very few memories of her that could have such an effect on him as their first reunion did. And now he was faced with a new problem- fixing the damage his outburst had done and delaying Ratchet's full discovery of the severe situation as much as possible.

"You were right." Optimus of course thought that Ratchet already knew that, but beginning with admitting his own mistaken denial was as good a start as any. "Because of the... relapses, I haven't been acting like a leader should." The medic sounded a grunt of acknowledgement. "Recently my actions have been selfish to my own conscience- no matter who else they might benefit in the end. If you will accept my apology-"

"No need, Optimus," Ratchet cut in with a sad, forgiving smile on his faceplate turned away. He easily recognised the regret in his old friend's tone- and something made him trust that his actions, however vague to Ratchet himself, were justified. Even with the depth of his knowledge of the Cybertronian psyche and the years he had spent in Optimus' company he couldn't even begin to imagine what his processor suffered through. Not to say that the medic was at all dismissing the whole 'Decepticon refugee' predicament, but Optimus knew what he was doing, and how to do it. Above being a dear old friend he was a Prime first and foremost- and his commander. Even if his vision was blurred from resurfacing past trauma and the immovable morals that both blessed and cursed all Primes, Ratchet would simply have to dust off that long-forgotten instinct called 'faith' and put all his swimming doubts in it to keep his Autobot loyalty close. For now, at least.

"In any case, right now we have a bigger problem," he continued, turning back to the screen displaying a co-ordinate map. "Bulkhead and Wheeljack haven't yet returned."

"Wheeljack?" Optimus asked, surprised to hear the departed Wrecker's name again.

"Yes, he arrived shortly after you left yourself. He didn't want to wait for your return, and Bulkhead went off with him. That was three breems ago." In that instant Prime took on the steel demenour that characterised a commander in thought. Now was the time to prove himself worthy of Ratchet's forgiveness. "I wouldn't expect Wheeljack to be spending any length of time within the base, but Primus knows where he might be dragging Bul-" A series of beeps from the console cut Ratchet's voice off, and he furiously typed in something as the map zoomed out and panned over to a different point.

"It's his signal," Ratchet relayed. "Over a thousand miles from here. And I would imagine Wheeljack is with him," he continued with a grimace in his tone.

"Attempt contact," Optimus ordered near instantly, expertly clearing his mind of all emotional clutter and focusing his blue-tinged sights on the task at hand- getting Bulkhead back home.

"No response," Ratchet said, turning around with worried optics. Optimus evaluated both the screen and the quandary ahead of him. If Bulkhead wasn't responding his comm link was either disabled or, most likely, he was unable to answer.

"Lock onto his c-" Optimus began, but stopped as he remembered that Airachnid's location was still inputted in the Ground Bridge targeting system. With a shutter of his optics Optimus quickly amended his command. "Make a record of the current locked Ground Bridge co-ordinates, the enter Bulkhead's." Logging her location was a risk in that any other Autobot scanning through the records could find and use it- Ratchet himself would be a main suspect for such activity. Especially now that he knew the nature of Prime's secret- though not so much a secret as a vague confession now. Optimus kept such suspicion in mind as the medic saved Airachnid's co-ordinates and reset the system to accept the input of Bulkhead's. The Bridge vortex whirled to life in a flash of swirling light and humming diodes.

"Optimus," Ratchet called as the Prime made to depart. The old mech's frame was tensed and his optics wandering again. "If I keep my silence on the... current Decepticon situation-"

"I promised to show you them. And this is one I will keep in time." Ratchet nodded in acceptance of Optimus' answer, and watched him disappear into the warp. Somehow, in a haze of leftover trust and dormant moral barriers rebuilding themselves, Ratchet fought back the urge to see where those previous numbers led to even while they rested at his very fingertips.

**xx**

It was a good name, Airachnid reasoned with herself. Her newly christened child slept soundly in her servos, exhausted from frame to tiny spark. Airachnid herself was feeling much the same as she struggled to keep her optics open and focused on the high moon above- but _why? _What was it that forbade her from pausing her motherly sentry duty against the night's horrors? When Scorpia was still but a squirming mass of metal veneer and protoform, even with her previous primitive maternal instincts overriding her processor Airachnid had no qualms of falling prey to peaceful sleep. But now that her child bore a name... she allowed her optics to shutter wearily for a nanoklick.

Scorpia's namesake constellation was still branded into the shifting sky draped over her, heavy with the weight of the cosmos and its own heavenly children. Only now with Prime gone again- with another promise to return soon in his wake- could Airachnid let the stars lull her into something close to stupor.

_'Hello, my old friends...' _She was reminded of the days she spent on Seven taking glances to the sky and frozen nights melting into dark mornings. 'Dark' was as accurate a description as any for Archa Seven's geography- every sqaure inch crowded with caves, forests and trees whose infinite lengths of roots and vines turned the planet into a criss-cross web containing the Universe's personal nightmares. Only once had she ever dared to challenge the twisted floor of snarling thorns and long-buried monsters condemned to the heart of Archa Seven. A dreary day with a monochrome patchwork sky breaking through the gaps in the mesh of branches in the forest canopy. She had no scale of the time when the day took place, all she knew was that it was only shortly after... she awoke. Perched on a branch, under a break in the branches, lidded gaze lingering on the shaft of thin sunlight that streamed from the window of sky past her optics, bleaching the ferns and leaves curled out desperately to trap the rays as they finally dropped down to the feral shadows far below her. Just when she risked a look to those shadows from fear nagging at her, the fleeting rays swept the edge of something for the briefest of moments. Something shiny and curious and... calling to her.

Airachnid didn't remember or _want _to remember what she was thinking at the time, nor why she was there. She'd worked too long these many years to block as much as her early Archa years from her mind to start dredging them up all over again. In fact, the only way she could recall the day she dared to dive was...

Careful not to disturb Scorpia, Airachnid unlooped a servo from around her and slowly inched it to where the opening to her pocket of subspace was. From its edge she pressed two digits onto a rough lump of rock almost jutting out, extracting it and holding the shard up against the glow of the moon. Among the encompassing shadows hooking themselves along the length of the rock brilliant diamonds of light pierced through- though Airachnid never did find out what type of mineral had encrusted the stone. She'd been too preoccupied trying to survive every day to put any research into it. When she finally wrestled it out of the entanglement of vines and thorns what felt like hours later, she spent another long while simply looking at it, turning it in her still-strange claws and stroking the tiny craters that marked its interstellar journey to her palm. She only discovered it was a meteorite long after the Decepticons picked her up, when she was toured around Kaon as a new recruit. Flamewar- that was her guide's name...

_"And over along this block we've got the newer barracks, some energon stores, missile silo to the left and cannons to pelt said missiles around the right. This used to be a view-point over Hydrax Plateau, but there isn't much to see there nowadays other than the graveyards. Somedays I miss the speedwa-"_

_"What's that on your neck?" Flamewar paused her rote at the interruption, turning away from the open viewing balcony overlooking part of the Plateau to look at the black-armoured femme she'd been stuck with today. She'd been silent throughout the whole tour other than affirming nods and sighs every now and then. At the sound of her question and her curious pink optics glancing from Flamewar's face to the thin loop of chain around her neck, the older femme took on a smug look. _

_"Oh, this?" She flicked the lump of glittering rock that hung between her chestplates. "Just a little trinket from an admirer. Pure Polaris meteorite joined with Gygaxian crystals. Rare enough before the war, but now-" She broke off with a scoff and a pair of digits rubbing at the precious jewel. "Course, with rarity comes a price- some femmes would _kill _for something like this."_

_"Right..." Airachnid said slowly, letting Flamewar lead on while she slyly slid a hand into her subspace. The word 'meteorite' struck a chord with her stellar-loving self- ever since she'd learnt the basics of the cosmos and its landmarks during her mandatory 'Decepticon Orientation' sessions she was fascinated by the sky and what lay beyond it. And to think she had a shard of that sky in her grasp... her hand tightened instinctively around the shard, and she refused to let go of it until her helm hit her berth that evening._

After she'd assimilated into Kaon's militant backdrop, Airachnid didn't see much of Flamewar after that except for the time the femme confronted her for 'taking her target' while on an interrogation mission- Arcee certainly had a lot of enemies among the Decepticon girls. If she recalled Flamewar was killed shortly before the exodus of Cybertron- a sniper caught the glint of that very same necklace she so proudly flaunted to Airachnid in the blurry mess of the battlefield (just as well her death was on the Hydrax Plateau, so they didn't have to budge her body).

Now that she looked over it all afresh , the spider didn't see much anyone familiar save for the drones and her commanding officers. And of course the Lord of them all... '_No. Don't think of him. Don't fragging think of that bastard...' _When she opened her optics she found her helm buried into Scorpia's , who pushed herself deeper in her grasp and burrowed near her spark chamber. Primus, she couldn't even look at her child without painfully remembering where she came from. Why would she care though? Why _should _she care about... _bonding _with her? Or the problems that would surely meet such a task... A groan rippled through her systems and her helm slumped back against the rock wall. All she wanted to do was forget about it all until the morning and hope against all possible hope that the entirety of the past year was just a horrific dream, but that was too easy. It _would_ be so easy to just let her optics snap shut and to let sleep wash over her...No. She was still alive. After all this slag, she was _still alive. _And she was strong enough to survive the past, present and whatever the damned future had hiding away for her. To let go was to give in, and to give in was weakness. She wasn't a Decepticon, she was better. Superior.

Why did Megatron take her? Because he believed it as well.

Why did he kill their first child? Because he was scared of anything that came from her.

Why did Optimus save her... Not again.

_'Just start with the basics, Air...' _she told herself through the pounding of her helm drowned in fatigue. She was a Decepticon. Not anymore. She was lost. She was stuck here. She had a child. She didn't_ want_ a child. But she loved she didn't know what love was- her attempt at thought collection only amplified the processor pulsing tenfold. Airachnid was beginning to suspect that perhaps her injuries weren't all specifically physical. With a hand around her meteorite and another on Scorpia's helm though, talons stroking in circles as her helm dropped even further back against the cushion of the cave wall, the ache dulled slowly, until she had nothing else to keep her awake.

**xx**

_Before anyone calls me out on lazy plot devices- yes, that meteorite will have significance later on. So sue me for liking shiny space things. Also I got Flamewar from the Arcee Decepticon repaint toy of the same name- her bio says that she's a personal enemy of Arcee so I thought it'd be interesting to see how she'd react to Airachnid coming close to killing her._


	9. Chapter 9

_I'm breaking on of my rules of 'consistent chapter lengths' with this slightly shorter than usual chapter, but oh well. I won't keep you here any longer, you wonderful readers you_

**xx**

Optimus detected only one life signal in range when he emerged in the depths of the rocky forest landscape- buried under a recent rockslide. Not a good sign. He managed to shift a few of the granite obstructions before he spied white flailing armour amidst the dirt and dust.

"What took you so long, Bulk? Don't tell me ridin' with Prime have made ya'-" Wheeljack's chuckle halted at the sight of Prime standing over him, glare hard against the silhouette of his armour and the glowing moon set behind him.

"Soft..." The Wrecker was roughly hauled to his peds, spilling off the other rocks piled on top of him, and worked on brushing his armour down rather than making optic contact with Optimus. "Nice of you to make it to the reunion at last."

"I am willing to overlook that remark if you direct me to where Bulkhead is." Wheeljack's optics reflected a foreboding uncertainty to Optimus' question.

"Oh he's near here, sure... uh... just need to dig around a bit..." Blue optics narrowed and squeezed into slits of controlled rage.

"You placed one of _my _Autobots in danger-"  
"With all due respect, sir," Wheeljack cut in while he flexed an aching shoulder joint. "Bulkhead knew the risks. _Every_ Wrecker does." Prime's glare hardened further as Wheeljack turned back to the stones. "Now I'm sure he's just... somewhere in this rubble." Optimus wasn't able to consider the hesitancy of Wheeljack's words before his fears were confirmed by a comm from Ratchet.  
"_Optimus, Bulkhead's signal has moved from your current position!" _

"Where is he now?"

"_Still mobile, I won't be able to centre on it until it is-"_

"I know where he is," Wheeljack said with a grim tone, making to march forward. "With Dreadwing." Optimus cocked and eyeridge at the mention of the familiar Decepticon, moving to keep up with Wheeljack.

"What part does Dreadwing have in this?"

"I tracked him down here, and he challenged me to a little stand-off. I had Bulkhead tag-along, a good ol' two against one."

"And you know where he is now?"  
"I've only followed him from Antares to Rigel and back," Wheeljack replied with a smirk despite the worry for his friend clouding over his faceplate. "I've still got a tracker on him, and with the Jackhammer gettin' over to him'll be sparkling's play."

"Sparklings..." Optimus allowed himself to muse out loud as Wheeljack vaulted over a cliffside, skidding down the stone while he decided to take a more cautious approach in lowering himself down. He'd never given much thought to Scorpia recently- his processor was preoccupied with still recovering from relapse and too coated in blind anger to focus on anything. But if the child truly believed that _he _was her sire, then he'd need to adjust that.

Whether or not this new bond with the sparkling would be advantageous or at all detrimental to his ultimate goal of keeping mother and daughter safe, Optimus had yet to see. He had seen first-hand the dangers of becoming too attached to something- especially something so fragile- and there was no guarantee that Scorpia would survive whatever Earth's forces or Primus had laid out for her. If the mortality of the previous war was anything to lay a basis on, growing up with the Decepticons forever lingering in the background would be like a survival game against a Sparkeater and a Mini-con. Optimus knew for a fact that there was no logistical chance in the Pit of his spark surviving another bond sever like...

He furiously shook his helm with a hidden scowl, a gesture that Wheeljack luckily did not catch. Primus, how could he be so _selfish? _Placing his own spark in the reserves while others young and old fought out on the frontlines- even if that spark was encased with the Matrix. And what would the fabled trinket rattling in his chassis tell him to do? What would the Primes of past do, be they as one mind or individual opinions? Would they even _approve _of his aid to Decepticons, let alone share his empathy? No... even if he could somehow summon again the long-gone consciousnesses of his prececessors he doubted that he'd be satisfied with their advice. He needed to reach his own conclusion- what he _knew _was right in the core of his spark.

That was a debate for another day though, he told himself as Wheeljack's ship came into view on the horizon. At least he could be sure of one thing; he had a duty now as a father to protect his-_their _daughter. And he'd fulfil it as a father should. Because in the end Megatron certainly wouldn't.

_"It's _our _sparkling now..."_

As Optimus contemplated it, a rare proud smile dared to show itself.

**xx**

It started with a simple thud against his chest. Unusual, but nothing to bring concern to his processor. Then came the ache. And the hisses. And finally the pulses of what he liked to call 'searing agony' spreading themselves all over his frame from his core that led to him stumbling into the med-bay.

"Lord Megatron, I'm deeply sorry, but there is _absolutely nothing wrong with-"_

"I don't need _apology! _I need RESULTS!" Megatron bellowed at the flinched figure of his medic, almost gouging his claws into the scanner he held with a shaking vice grip. He'd been holding the damn thing for at least a breem, hovering it over every joint, node, wire and plate on Megatron's body at his fusion cannon's insistence- at least that's what Knockout gleaned from the steady pulse of plasma aimed at his helm. He only dared to let an air intake pass when the purple glow snapped away from him, following the movement of Megatron's servo as he hefted himself off of the examination table.

"I understand your frustration fully, but unsourced spark pains aren't _unheard _of, my liege," Knockout pressed on, digging through his mental medical archives for any reprievals that would stop Megatron from flexing his claws like that- it was too easy to imagine them scraping into his paint job...

"You expect me to accept that my spark is so weak that it succumbs to _SENSORY PHANTASMA!?" _ Megatron roared as he whirled around again, optics ablaze with seething irritation and glowing a red that rivalled Knockout's own finish. Primus, he didn't know what the metal maniac he called Master wanted from him- what was he _supposed _to do when he just marched himself into the med-bay (without an appointment, nontheless) with a hand over his spark chamber and another hauling Knockout over? Of course the medic was used to strange demands in the Decepticons and thought nothing of Megatron's immediate demand to have his chamber examinined, but he didn't have the faintest idea of what he _wanted _him to find in there.

"N-not at all, Lord Megatron- but unless there's a way to physically remove your spark for examination-" He tried to ignore the murderous glare he received at making such a suggestion. "-then I've done all that's possible to try and diagnose what the problem is. Even if there were anything I could see, there could be any number of causes. Chamber stress, compression, Dark Energon use..." Knockout was sure to keep his last suggestion to a mumble that he prayed wouldn't be heard.

"I see.." The medic fought the urge to flinch from Megatron's low growl, and only lowered his defensively raised servos when the flare of the warlord's optics died down somewhat. With another punch to his chest Megatron departed from the med-bay as suddenly as he arrived without a further word to Knockout and only one drill casually crushed in his claws. Well, at least it wasn't serious.

**xx**

"You, uh... ain't lookin' too good, Prime."

Wheeljack's off-hand comment almost made Optimus helm collide with the Jackhammer's ceiling as it jolted in shock. He hadn't realised his optics had closed over until light suddenly burst painfully into his vision. The blue orbs whirred as they tried to adjust to the visual overload, and took in Wheeljack's infrequent worried glances while he sat at the ship's controls.

"I haven't... been keeping to a good recharge schedule lately," Optimus managed to mumble his explanation with some gathered dignity, rubbing a hand against his faceplate and shaking off the dregs of fatigue leeching onto his systems. That coupled with the inescapable stress that buckled itself to his shoulders did not make for a confident appearance. Even now the only thing keeping him from falling into recharge was the bump of the Jackhammer's flight path through the sky, crossing counties in pursuit of Dreadwing and their lost Autobot. Wheeljack gave a shrug at Optimus' reply, knowing better than to chance another few glances with Prime's optics now functional. Primus, he was another one Optimus would have to worry about... if he was to remain on Earth for any length of time, who's to say he wouldn't see it convenient to scout his surroundings? And if Airachnid was living as close as Jasper's woods to the Autobot base, Wheeljack could easily stumble across them. Optimus didn't want to even consider what a Wrecker's reaction to rogue Decepticons would be, but he knew it wouldn't be pretty. Still, even with doubts of Wheeljack's own moral values circling his mind, Optimus knew that he would have made a valuable addition to the Autobots if he ever made the decision to leave behind his lost roots. Such a thing was unlikely though- who was he to expect any bot to abandon what was perhaps the only tie to Cybertron that they had left? Even with Airachnid's own protests that she had completely defected from the Decepticons, if it wasn't for Megatron Optimus was sure that she would still be on the Nemesis right now. Too many ifs to break past his barrier of lethargy... he needed to distract his mind, to keep himself occupied.

A thought suddenly struck him hard enough to have his helm make contact with the ceiling this time.

"Wheeljack, if I may ask-"  
"Shoot." He didn't turn his gaze from straight ahead while Optimus held a hand to the dent now baring itself on his head.

"In your travels, did you come across a planet known as Archa Seven?"

Wheeljack let out a small whistle at the name. "Haven't heard the name Archa in a long while.. I remember this one planet called 'Akalo'- I swear, just sayin' that around Ultra Magnus makes 'im cower in the corner. See, there was this massive energy surge down there- natives called it the Divine Light or some'in or other- anyway, it was my last official mission as a Wrecker under Magnus' command, and before we can get to where Akalouthans have their bars, what do you know, the Decepticons are wantin' in on-"

"Wheeljack. Archa Seven?"

"Wha-? Oh, that." Wheeljack cleared his vocaliser and shook his helm to clear it of any remaining nostalgia. "Guessin' it's the seventh planet from the star? Yeah, I got near the system again after I left the Wreckers- Seven had the biggest energon spikes, so I touched down there. Nice place, little bit humid and big-crazy-bug-infested for my likin' though."

"The spiders?" Optimus' optics brightened at the prospect of possibly hearing what creatures Airachnid had spent her life surrounded by. Other than the scholarly curiousity of Orion Pax making its reappearance, he would work on learning anything that would help in her finally opening up to him. A stable trust between the two would be vital in ensuring Scorpia as normal a childhood as she could get in such circumstances.

"If you wanna' call 'em that, sure. Me, I'll just stick with fraggin' big crazy bugs." Wheeljack gave a shudder at the thought of scittering legs and glassy rows of murderous eyes thinking up one hundred different ways to pry his armour off and feed it to their kids. "Barely got outta there with my servos still attached, even then I only got a few old energon boxes for my trouble. Big big ship of the slag crashed down in the middle of the forest- Decepticon from the look of it, but I wasn't too picky."

"What were the spiders like?" Optimus pressed on, gaining another passive shrug from Wheeljack.

"Just like spiders, I guess. Nothin' more to it. Big afts, big legs, big... creepy fangs. Lived in these big hives, eatin' anything that gets in their way; think of a Scraplet, an Insecticon, and nine vorns after a damn drunk night. " He turned his helm back towards Optimus. "What's so important 'bout them anyway?"

"I... came across a reference to them in a data cylinder. I was curious." Wheeljack seemed to find the notion of a bot like a Prime being described as 'curious' amusing from his stifled smirk, but said nothing further to voice doubt. Other than a slight mutter under his breath that widened his smirk into a grin.

"Course, not _all _of them are bad..."

"What was that?"

"Uh, nothin'! Nothin'..." Wheeljack veered his optics away from Optimus' scowling sound of suspicion.

**xx**

_Okay some quick explanations: Wheeljack's little ending quip is pretty much an inside joke between me and Emmy in which Wheeljack and Air met up at a bar outpost during their own interstellar planet hopping days... e'yup. Also the part with Wheeljack talking about a Wrecker mission to Akalo is taken from an old Transformers multi-verse comic- I wouldn't expect anyone to get the reference but I like tying in as much of present and past canon as I can ;) _

_Finally, the moment with Megatron experiencing spark pains... well, his spark DOES still have a bond to Scorpia- regardless of whether he knows about it or not. If Scorpia is instead forming a stronger bond with Optimus rather than Megatron, then its bound to hurt to have the pre-existing bond fade away. _


	10. Chapter 10

_Aaaah, this one was a long time coming. Holidays make me lazy. _

**_NOTE:_**_ Before this I added something the third chapter- some of you re-reading the fic may have come across it. It's an extra paragraph concerning Airachnid recalling her escape from the Nemesis- don't want to spoil it here, but it offers some insight to the last paragraph of this chapter. When I was first developing this fic with Emmy I considered just keeping a certain aspect as a secret little background thing between me and her, as I wasn't sure how it would be received by you readers, but eventually she convinced me to actually include it in the story. Make of it what you will, and on with the show~_

**xx**

He should have been asleep. He should have just let himself fall into his berth and in turn into recharge, letting what blissful ignorance he had left drop him into the next bustling morning. Maybe the presence of other well-rested Autobots would... soothe him somehow. But Ratchet couldn't sleep- not with the base so empty yet so full with secrets. Optimus' parting promise was still running through his processor, distracting him from any possibility of doing work. Not that he had any- apart from the single file opened before him on his screen.

He'd stared at the image for an hour now- an hour exactly. He checked the clock every five minutes, methodically counting down the ticking analogues to daybreak. This certainly wasn't the first time he'd whiled away twilight hours at his console, but what _was _a first was the nature of his convenient insomnia.

Two Decepticons... the possibilites were slim, but the only evidence of their existence presented in front of him wasn't exactly helpful in narrowing it down. The glow of energon seemed normal at first- to the untrained optic. But Ratchet had seen enough of what injured bots bled to see the too-subtle pigment irregularities. Even so, he couldn't see _how _seriously they were injured... Primus, what wouldn't he have given to have someone like First Aid with him...

His shuttering optics widened as his helm shook itself. Dammit, _one _bot being so stuck in the past was enough for him to deal with. Even with his HUD flashing so irritatingly he had to stay focused- right now his curiosity was all that convinced him to stay online. So he knew that at least one of the 'Cons was injured- for whatever reason. And much as he didn't want to admit it, but hurting one of those was no mean feat. As for the rest of the image... the silhouette was almost totally blended into the twisting trees and soggy claws of ferns. Even when he first saw it Ratchet didn't believe it could be a Cybertronian shape, but now with the hours spent in study he saw that some 'branches' didn't line up to the surrounding plants, some shadows didn't fit, and he swore he could see the barest glimmer of pink...

He huffed a tired sigh, and forced himself not to look again at the Ground Bridge controls to his left. Optimus said he would show him, but how long would it take for him to deem it 'the right time' for revelation? Ratchet didn't doubt his friend's trust for one minute but... he was impatient. He was worried. He needed to _know _that there was no danger, that Optimus wasn't about to make a terrible mistake.

Just one button would take him to them...

_'No.' _He'd wait. He had to. He had to pretend that the co-ordinates, the shape and the doubts weren't there. Just for a while. For as long as his cynicism would hold back for.

Not that that was a more reassuring way to put it.

**xx**

It was times like this that Rafael was grateful for backup files. True, he didn't usually save copies of the Autobots internet shots, but this _was _a special circumstance. And it wasn't exactly an Autobot one.

With a stifled yawn he rubbed his eyes again- no wonder he needed glasses when he always had them locked onto a computer screen. Still, he couldn't bear to give them a rest just yet.

He'd almost forgotten about the blog photo that he'd tracked down the previous day. But it popped up again suddenly in his mind just as he entered his bedroom, seeing Bumblebee tear away from the sidewalk outside his house with a farewell flash of his rear lights from the window. Now, two hours and a USB stick later, he sat with it open on his screen and scanning through his brain. Something about it was...off. When he took away the distracting glow of the energon the shadows didn't fit together right. And Raf was no expert in trees, but he _knew_ they didn't grow that jagged in the background...

What was it that Optimus had said about it? Of course it would be from a Cybertronian... but what type? Autobot or Decepticon, or something in between? _Was _there anything in between? A sigh tipped his head back wearily. _'It's too late to be thinking about this stuff...' _When he went to shut off his computer though, a small _blip _came through the speakers. He didn't hear it very often, but that was the sound of someone messaging him.

_'u online?'_

Only Miko could get away with typing like that.

_'Yeah. Why are you up so late?' _He typed it in after another sigh, idly wondering if it was _really _that hard to type in a few extra letters for conhesiveness sake.

_'culd ax u the sam thing' _

_'We have school tomorrow.'_

_'ur tellin me XD' _

Typing that gruelling fact in must have ended up imprinting it in his sluggish mind, because all Raf wanted to do was fall into bed and hope that morning was still a long way off.

_'Raf? U ok?' _Miko's new message brought Raf's hand back from the computer's power button. Well, at least she was using capitals now.

_'Sorry, Miko. Just tired.' _His fingers hesitated for a second on the keyboard, before he decided to ask her._ 'You know that energon blog pic I found?'_

_'ya'_

_'I've been looking it over, and there's something weird about it. Don't know how to explain what.' _He didn't expect Miko to give him any help with it- he just felt the need to share the worries with someone. Anything that would give his mind a rest, even if his typing fingers didn't get one.

_'sounds freky,' _Miko replied after a long moment, in which he could almost picture her scratching her head in thought._ 'U shuld tell OP bout it' _

Optimus. He was still out in the forest when night settled and they all had to return home- Raf remembered the worry wreathed in Bumblebee's beeps when he talked with him during the ride back, and the anxiousness on Bulkhead and Arcee's faceplates that they conveniently hid in their alt modes. Usually Raf would have been planning to tell him anyway, but with what Ratchet had said about Elita One... Raf couldn't even imagine what he'd do if anyone in _his _family was harmed, and he didn't want to think about what Optimus must have been going through. He had too much to worry about now- no matter how brave a faceplate he put on for the rest of Team Prime. Nevertheless...

_'I think I will.'_

"RAFAEL!" A sudden shout from the lower landing made his fingers slip on his keyboard just as he sent the message, and his glasses almost fell off his desk from how he jolted in surprise.

"Are you _still _on that _computadora?!_"

"Sorry, Mama- I was just finishing up some homework!" he answered, scrabbling to switch it off and leap into bed before she decided to stamp up the stairs. The covers muffled his mother's warning for him to get to sleep, but even if he heard it it didn't speed up the hours that it took his mind to finally switch off.

**xx**

"More spark pains, Lord Megatron?" Knockout asked, trying to keep the weariness out of his voice as the mech marched again into the familiar medbay. No matter how much he told him that there was nothing to do but wait for the aches to subside, he just kept coming and threatening all sorts of unfortunate limb removal if the good doctor refused to look him over _again_. It was enough to almost _want_ your spark chamber torn out and thrown off the Nemesis flight deck. Still, he could hardly let himself offline with his chassis so scarred, so that was enough to steer him away from the usual impulses.

"Not this time, Knockout," Megatron growled to Knockout's carefully veiled relief. "No doubt you've heard of Airachnid's _departure_ from our ranks?" A crimson eyeridge raised at his question.

"Of course, my liege," Knockout answered, just as he set down a polished drill. Only the entire army had heard of her escape from the Nemesis, and over half were envious of her getting out. And he would admit that he'd miss seeing those fascinating legs of hers...

"And while she _was_ with us, she underwent a full medical examination?"

"As standard."

"Then why was I not informed that she was carrying?" He almost sliced the rag in his claws into strips with how his wired suddenly clenched at Megatron's casual revelation.

"I-I'm sorry, my liege?" he stuttered, whirling to face the warlord's expectant optics with his own wide ones. Knockout realised his audios weren't glicthing when Megatron's faceplate hardended, and his peds began to march his frame closer to the medic.

"_Airachnid. Was. Carrying," _he growled slowly, optics narrowing with every word punctuated with disapproval. "Either you _failed _to notice... or you decided _not _to tell me, _doctor." _When he drew his scowling faceplate level with Knockout's, the red mech was fighting not to flinch away from the raging hot air rolling out of his vents, ending up with his wheels pressing into a wall.

"U-um, I d-did not detect any life signals i-in her spark chamber when-"

"_EXCUSES_!" The med-bay erupted into a screech of claws on metal and a cry of agony from Knockout as his abdomen metal was torn into by grey talons that flung him across the room like a lifeless target drone. Energon leaked from the twin wounds in his side and from a gash in his lip that came from his denta biting into it, and he left a trail of the liquid as he scuttled backwards from Megatron's approach.

"That _glitch _spawned a sparkling on this ship- _AND NOT __**ONE **__OF YOU __**MORONS **__KNEW ABOUT IT?!" _Every word screamed hit into Knockout like bricks as he futilely held his shaking servos up against Megatron's fury.

"L-Lord Megatron, please! I-If I had any _idea _that Airachnid was in that state-" Knockout began to beg, holding back his wince at the spreading sting of his bleeding cuts. "T-then I would_ never _have let it go u-unreported!" The fear in his optics and in his heavy broken air cycles seemed to have the necessary effect on his pleading, for the warlord's snarling scowl and the seething glare of his optics seemed to fade back into the darker recesses of his mind. He straightened his spinal column and glanced with distaste at the sheen of energon on his claw tips as Knockout struggled to stand. The gaping gashes in his protoform were no real worry to him- his mind was too focused on keeping Megatron from another volatile outburst and convincing Breakdown to buff the scratches out after all this for him.

"So you say..." he muttered skeptically as he slowly rubbed his talons together. "And if I _was _to take your word for it." A ragged sigh of eternal thanks to merciful Primus shadowed Megatron's turning away from Knockout. "Then that still leaves the question of _how _you _just so happened_ to not know of her pregnancy."

"Well, um... if I may input on the situation," Knockout started his bid to keep himself alive for the time being. "The act of sparkling carrying is a _very _delicate procedure- any number of factors may have shielded the spark from detection." Megatron's quirked optic ridges expressed a smidge of believe to the medic's reasoning, and a twitch of his stained talons folded behind his back signalled him to continue.

"She may not have been sparked at the time of the examination, o-or the scanner was malfunctioning, or even her partially organic biology might have interfered with the results!" Knockout went on, trying not to groan with every step he took with a hand stemming the trickle of energon from the largest wound on his right. "And i-if I might ask, my liege..." his dimming optics flitted nervously as he hesitated to inquire. "How do we know _now _that she was with spark?" He almost dived for the floor again at the sight of Megatron forming a fist, but instead of crashing it into Knockout's faceplate he kept it static as he rotated himself to face the medic again. The look in his optics was cold and somewhat thoughtful, like curious dried blood stains.

"It was that child's birth that prompted her _defection _in the first place," he eventually answered with little emotion that could be discerned. "I saw it before she escaped."

"What became of it?" Knockout pressed on. Megatron's lips twitched ever so slightly as he delivered his dangerous reply.

"It has been dealt with." The tone told Knockout that any further questions would not be so generously answered- with words rather than a fusion cannon in his face. "Return to your usual duties- I trust this discussion will not leave the walls of this med-bay?" The medic managed a single nod as he recalled where Airachnid's escape had been reported from- the fourth level deck of the Nemesis- those few days ago, and the team of Eradicons that had to close the whole level off for 'cleaning' shortly afterwards when Megatron finally departed again. And on that grim note did he also realise the most nagging question of them all.

_'Who in their right mind would sire a sparkling with _her_?'_

**xx**

"Open Dreadwing's communication link," Megatron relayed to Soundwave as he entered the Command Centre, just registering how long it had been since he saw the soldier. If anyone now knew the importance of keeping appropriate leashes on your officers, it was Megatron. As Soundwave opened the comm channel, the warlord didn't hold back the edge to his addressing tone.

_"Dreadwing, where are you?"_

_"Merely pursuing my destiny, Lord Megatron." _His co-ordinates came up on the screen as he spoke- Megatron didn't recognise them, but he sensed that wherever it was, it would soon be Dreadwing's grave.

_"Did I not order you to stand down?"_ The edge sharpened on the stone of his vocaliser as it grated past, already growing wary of just _how _loyal this Seeker was. They were always ones to watch out for...

_"Forgive me, one true master, but it is my hope that vanquishing Optimus Prime will earn your respect." _He had to shutter his optics to stop them from rolling at Dreadwing's evident lapse of stupidity.

_"Optimus is not so easily disposed of, as I keep trying to explain to all of those who foolishly attempt it!"_

_"I assure you, Master, in but a few moments Optimus and two others will be blown to their protoforms."_ He paused a moment to consider Dreadwing's words- in all the times Megatron had received false news of Prime's impending demise, his would-be assassins were never able to actually _trap _him. And if there _were _two other Autobots to sweeten the gravestone...

_"I will allow it, Dreadwing, in memory of your departed twin, but only this once," _Megatron finally relented, with no real anger left in his systems after just subjecting Knockout to the brunt of it. And perhaps Skyquake's death could prove _very _useful for ensuring Dreadwing's full and loyal return to the Decepticon cause. And he'd be a valuable addition, of course- for as long as he can stay alive.

"I will be surprised if we ever hear from Dreadwing again," Megatron commented with a hint of smugness as he clicked off the comm link. Obviously he didn't expect a reply from Soundwave beside him, but there was something in his energy field that felt... distant. His helm turned to where his officer stood still as ever- _too _still. It was something that Megatron had noticed as a rather common trend developing within Soundwave recently.

"Soundwave." Megatron's summons was met with no acknowledgement. "Soundwave!" Only when he raised the decibel did the mech's helm snap to attention toward the warlord's voice, not even a semblance of surprise in his frame other than the slight fizzle of his field. Even the faceless couldn't hide _everything._

"You've been rather _unfocused _as of late, Soundwave," Megatron mentioned suspiciously, partially turning himself further in Soundwave's direction. No further response. "I'll expect your Iacon database work to be progressing as ever despite current... events." Not that he'd also expect Airachnid's departure to have any effect on the officer. But he didn't notice Soundwave's confirming nod come with just a nanoklick of hesitation beforehand.


End file.
